Healthcast 663 - A Plan for Health and Longevity to Avoid the Pain and Disability of Aging

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog

On the last Heath cast #662 we talked about the choice of doing nothing when faced with symptoms of hormone deficiency and symptoms of aging, versus the choice to actively live a healthy life. I believe that concentrating on yourself as you age can save your lifestyle and or your life!  Preventing illness as you age is as important as paying your taxes!

An unhealthy living plan without replacing deficient hormones can lead you on  a road to illness and early death.  If that doesn’t motivate you, then consider yourself warned. Recently I saw a man in his late 70s who I had seen about 7 years before this.  He and his wife entered my office, and I could see that some of my medical predictions had come true.  This man had developed every disease I told him his blood work and physical self-predicted. Despite the treatment plan I gave him, he ignored me on diet, exercise, supplements, stopping smoking and drinking I gave him 7 years earlier.  He admitted that everything I told him would happen, did happen and now he is in constant pain, he is morbidly obese, and has trouble even walking.  He now has diabetes and has had a heart attack and 7 ER admissions for his heart since.  He did not do one thing I told him, except just recently he stopped drinking alcohol. He now is ready to live a healthy lifestyle however since he has so many diseases, he spends an enormous amount of money on medications and medical care.  The cost of care was his reason to ignore hormones, but he ignored my lifestyle advice as well.  Even though now a lifestyle change and testosterone pellets will improve his life, he still has done damage to his blood vessels and heart not to mention his joints and back.  These aging changes I cannot prevent, just stop the rapid progression.

When you become our patient, we ask you a variety of questions that help us design a treatment plan, more accurately named a “longevity plan”. Symptoms of Testosterone, Estradiol and Thyroid deficiency:

A combined list of symptoms of aging for men and women include:

Loss of Testosterone Symptoms:

·      Loss of sex drive

·      Loss of erections, and morning erections

·      Loss of orgasms for women

·      Fatigue

·      Insomnia

·      Depression/anxiety attacks

·      Loss of strength and muscle mass

·      Frailty

·      Can’t think clearly or remember names of things

·      Loss of motivation

·      Loss of efficiency at work

·      Weight gain

·      Belly fat increase

·      Sagging skin

·      Arthritis

·      Osteoporosis

Loss of estradiol (women):

·      Hot flashes

·      Night sweats

·      Anxiety attacks

·      Irritability

·      Dry vagina

·      Painful intercourse

·      Sagging skin

·      Frontal balding

·      Urine loss

·      Dry skin

·      Shrinking vagina

·      Osteoporosis

·      Arthritis

 

 Thyroid deficiency:

·      Hair loss

·      Fat gain

·      Fatigue

·      Depression

·      Feels cold all the time

·      Very dry skin

·      All body swelling

·      Constipation

·      High cholesterol

·      Low blood pressure and pulse

These symptoms above can be treated and in treating them you will experience not only a lack of symptoms, but a longer healthier life. However, if you also change your lifestyle you can avoid the diseases of aging too!

Through replacing your deficient hormones, add only individually chosen supplements and develop a healthy whole food eating plan, with 3-7 days a week of exercise (1 hour/ session). 

 

What do I mean? What is a healthy Lifestyle?

·      If you smoke STOP!

·      If you Drink more than 15 alcoholic drinks a week, then stop, If you aren’t addicted to alcohol, you should decrease your drinking to < or = 7 drinks a week.

·      Exercise 30-60 minutes a day (consecutively)

·      Throw out all the simple carbs in your kitchen: all cereals and granola, use olive oil to cook and no vegetable oils, Processed dry food in boxes or cans should be donated to charity.

·      Buy fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, cheese yogurt, fresh or frozen meat, fish chicken, turkey for meals at home.

·      Sourdough bread is the best choice in breads—it has no gluten but still has carbohydrates, so small amounts are advised.

·      Do something you love every day

·      Look for opportunities to have fun

You CAN turn your bad genes off through a healthy lifestyle!  Now we know even your genes can be combatted through healthy living. The diseases of aging can be adjusted or avoided.  When thinking about what your risks might be, remember that Family history is a broad and faulty way to determine your risk, but genetic testing is a better way to determine your risk of disease that is found in in your chromosomes and genes. The combination of your genes are uniquely yours. Knowing what your genes are can guide you to an individual healthy lifestyle for avoiding disease and living a long life.   We offer this service for our patients who want to know what the perfect diet and lifestyle plan is.  It is called the

 

Nutrigen test is optional but a great idea if you are trying to renovate your life! This saliva test (no needles) can determine the genetics you inherited from your ancestors.  We then share the information with you and develop a lifestyle plan that includes lifetime changes in eating to decrease carbohydrates from grains and sugar, increase protein, and remove as many processed foods as possible. The Nutrigen test tells you what genes you inherited that impacts your health, but it doesn’t tell me whether you have turn any of your bad genes off or your bad genes on!

We offer that test to our patients who are trying to lose fat or just reframe their life so they can live more productively and as much without disease as possible,

Now if you aren’t convinced that you need to replace your hormones with testosterone plus estradiol if you are a postmenopausal woman, or if you figure you will 

 Does a future of having Alzheimer’s disease strike your panic button enough to change what you eat and how much you exercise, and to replace your Testosterone with Pellets?  Or is it losing a limb from diabetes? Being unable to talk from a Stroke?  Would losing your ability to move around as you do today from a Stroke or heart attack make you scared enough to value your health and clean up your lifestyle?  Or would the prospect of never having sex again be the trigger that causes you to be as careful with you own health, body,  and mind, preserving it for the rest of your life?

Medical care is not just about fixing the sick through medications or surgery anymore, although that is the paradigm we have all grown up in.  That dated belief may have dominated our  belief  about what medical care can do for us and how it works because until recently medical experts didn’t understand how diseases sprouted from a bad lifestyle, or because we were taught that our genes determine our health and there is nothing we can do about it…..but we now know that leading a healthy lifestyle, using food as fuel and not entertainment, and being moderate in everything from food, to alcohol to exercise is the key to a long healthy life. New information in the last 20 years has come to light  revealing that an individual can turn off bad genes through a healthy lifestyle…. Your genetics do not  dictate your fate, but it is your behavior that dictates the diseases you will suffer fromwith through the last half of your life  and eventually die from.

Let’s talk about the most dangerous lifestyle choices that you can make. You must think about your body as a luxury car that requires a lot of maintenance, the best quality gas to fuel it, and loving care every day to maintain its value and performance.  Our bodies are a thousand times more complicated than the highest- performance car, and I contend that the most beneficial maintenance you can do is to think about your health every day especially when you are presented with behavioral choices.  For instance, when you wake up you should stretch and make sure your muscles are not spasmed.  YThe you should think about the two most important choices you will make all day, “When will I work out for an hour?” and “What shall I eat today?”. .  Exercise is key to managing your insulin sensitivity and blood sugar, protecting you from diabetes and heart disease.  Why would you avoid this inexpensive protection from these deadly diseases?   Planning what you will eat that day (or for the next week) should include  healthy, non-processed foods and drinks with plenty of water and protein and limited carbohydrates from grains especially from wheat.

But you counter my suggestion ,” Wwhat should I do when everyone around me is overeating processed foods and drinking alcohol and sugared soda?”.  My answer is, “Stop and think! Do you drive over a cliff because the guy in front of you does? No!  Be brave and don’t make a scene., just choose to eat and drink in a healthy manner…if that is not available, leave and find the food and drink your body needs!”  You are no longer a teenager when all the mistakes we make are “forgiven” by our bodies.  That stops working after age 20!

 

I think you should look at taking care of yourself like being engaged in working toward a goal, whether it be in sports, climbing the corporate ladder, getting a raise or getting your degree.  Health is a goal that will repay you throughout your life.

I no longer work in OBGYN not because I didn’t enjoy it, or it wasn’t profitable enough, I stopped running around with my hair on fire, stressed out and exhausted without adequate sleep or nutrition because it was bad for me!  My medical practice literally made me sick!  I gained weight, felt terrible, looked old, was crabby and depressed, so I made a choice to make my health a priority and a priority for my patients.

In terms of how  my medical practice changed…from doing insurance paid medicine which is paid for the patient by someone else I was daily faced with patients who didn’t value my advice and didn’t follow it!  I now have a medical practice where patients pay for their care themselves.  There is something about paying for something that makes you value it more!

Instead of seeing patients yearly that I gave the same advice I give to my BioBalance patients today and repeating myself year after year without my patients making any progress, I now recommend lifestyle changes and treat my patients with replacement testosterone and estradiol pellets and they immediately feel better and follow my advice!

I am blessed to watch my patients achieve health by changing their hormones, diet, exercise, changing medications and taking supplements to round out the nutrition offered by their food choices.

The one most important health goal should be weight loss so you can achieve your ideal weight while you maintain your muscle mass. That change will take effort and sacrifice and if you are over 40 you will need testosterone to make this happen! 

 

Here are the diseases that are caused by obesity:

·      CANCER! All kinds!

·      Diabetes-Type II

·      Heart disease, Myocardial infarction and stroke

·      Alzheimer’s disease

·      Autoimmune diseases

·      Endometriosis

·      Arthritis and joint replacement

·      Hypertension and kidney disease

·      Immune deficiency

Are you afraid of getting any of these diseases?  What is your most terrifying disease that keeps you awake at night?  Any of these in the list above?

 

I have always been fearful of Alzheimer’s Disease and stroke because not being able to think and speak is my biggest fear!  I have gone so far as to have genetic tests for Alzheimer’s Dx and I have 1 of the 2 genes that cause this devastating condition. However, because I have taken estradiol and Testosterone pellets since I was 47, my chance of getting this disease has been delayed 20 years.  Other factors that increase my risk for stroke and dementia are inflammation from being overweight, eating a high carb diet, lack of exercise, hypertension, poor neurotransmitters from a poor diet and bad gut bacteria. 

One by one I have changed my lifestyle to decrease these risk factors.

If I can do this, you can!  You don’t have a harder work schedule than I have had or less time to choose foods to eat.  I choose to turn down more than one alcoholic beverage, to take my own healthy snacks when I travel and at my office.