Healthy Lifestyle Habits
We all like to stay young and healthy forever. But unfortunately, that isn’t
entirely possible. Longevity is a hot topic these days, and there are many
lifestyle habits, natural and pharmaceutical based supplements and
treatments on the market that can be used as tools to slow down the aging
process.
The anti-aging industry is a fast-growing industry. Successful aging is on the rise
for many people, with our fast-aging population. There are currently 671 million
people worldwide who are over the age of 60.
People are living longer, partly because our success in preventing childhood diseases,
like polio, as well as finding new treatments and prevention strategies for
adult conditions such as heart disease.
But it’s also because scientists are unlocking the secrets of aging itself.
We have found out why our bodies break down and how to put the brakes on
our own destruction.
In the process we are expanding not only our life spans, but also what scientists call:
our health span. “we are living too short and dying too long,” – Dr. Myron Wentz.
The Antioxidant Power
Researchers discovered that one of the most important causes of heart disease,
cancer, wrinkles, arthritis and many of the other problems that comes with aging
is the same process that makes an apple turn brown and our body cells to break
down and age, it’s called oxidation.
Through a series of chemical changes, oxygen molecules in our bodies lose
electrons, making them unstable. These unstable molecules are called free radicals.
By raving attempts to stabilize themselves, free radicals steel electrons
from healthy cells throughout your body. Every time they steal an electron,
two things happen: A healthy molecule is damaged, and more free radicals are
created. Free radicals can damage the DNA of your cells, proteins in tissues
throughout your body, and other components that make you function properly.
Unless the process is stopped, more and more cells are damaged every day,
and your health pays the price.
Nature provides an enormous arsenal of antioxidants in order to keep this
damaging process under control.
These are compounds in foods that can stop free radicals from doing harm.
Antioxidants come between free radicals and your body’s healthy cells,
offering up their own electrons and preventing yours of being stolen.
Although your body maintains its own antioxidant system naturally,
the antioxidants in foods gives you a powerful boost of extra protection against
free radicals. “But if you understand the tremendous damage that oxidative
stress inflicts during normal daily life on the human body, you realize how
important it is to optimize your own natural defense system.
Your health and life depend on it.
Through my research I learned that the strongest defense against these diseases
is our bodies’ own natural antioxidant and immune systems. These are far
superior to drugs I can prescribe.”
“I concluded after much study that using nutritional supplementation on patents
is not alternative medicine but is instead complementary medicine.” Dr. Ray Strand M. D.
Some studies have found that vitamin E may help to protect you from heart
disease, (and beta-carotene and selenium is a mineral that’s an ingredient in
some of your body’s antioxidant enzymes) may help lower your risks of some
cancers.
What is Longevity?
Longevity is not just about living as long as possible, but living the longest,
healthiest life possible – free of chronic diseases.
This is where the term “health span” comes in. Many may agree that a person’s
health span is far more important than the life span. However, being “healthy”
means different things to different people. A better definition of longevity might
include being free from serious disease, having energy and cognitive processes,
as well as physical mobility and strength.
Successful aging means having a healthy physical body and good mental health.
What’s interesting however, is hat when we do things that are healthy for our
physical bodies, these actions benefit our brain health as well. And visa versa.
We die not of old age, but of the cumulative failures within our cells. These
failures are not inevitable breakdowns, but instead are the reversible elements
of aging.
Lifestyle habits accumulate, and those habits can either have a negative effect
on health or a positive one. Small daily habits can be cumulative and build up
to big things over a lifetime. The best habits to include in your day-to-day life
right now are a healthy diet, regular exercise, maintaining your steady blood
sugar level, regular social contact, and a good sleep on a regular basis.
Building on top of these foundational healthy habits are some ground breaking
scientific treatments worth mentioning, which I will discuss in a following
article. They all point towards increased health and longevity.