Anti-Aging Medicine

Leaf through a magazine or newspaper or turn on your television, and you will inevitably see advertisements for products that claim to make you look younger. These ads are designed to cause us to buy their product, but also to make us think that in doing so we actually can defy age. They succeed in selling products by exploiting our vanity, not by defying age.

But there is, in fact, a movement in contemporary medicine to address the effects of aging on the human body – not just the cosmetic effects – and to offer real help and hope for patients.

A paradigm shift has occurred in the way doctors view health maintenance, and doctors and researchers are now studying why people age and how degenerative disease occurs. In anti-aging medicine, the goal is to maintain good health throughout life, not just to extend it. This includes reversing chronic degenerative illness, and preventing the degeneration that occurs with age.

Recent research in anti-aging medicine has concluded that the two important components to anti-aging are nutrition and endocrine (hormone) function.

Anti-aging nutrition includes phyto-nutrients (nutrients derived from plants) which naturally contain anti-oxidants. Anti-oxidants act on the body somewhat like the way W-D 40 acts on metal yard tools: preventing harmful oxidation. In other words, the breakdown and degradation of the body and mind is significantly slowed down by adding a steady supply of anti-oxidants. Conditions such as cancer, macular degeneration, skin wrinkling and certain auto-immune pathologies are thought to be due to oxidation-related processes in the body.

In young people, the endocrine system creates and releases hormones that keep the body in an anabolic (building) state. At about age 25, however, the endocrine system begins a steady decline into a catabolic (breaking down) state, largely due to aging and chronic stress. As this occurs, a corresponding decline in overall health will become apparent. Common symptoms of hormone imbalance and catabolism include joint pain, chronic fatigue, difficulty with memory and cognition, sleep disturbances, depression and mood swings, loss of libido, hair loss, and inability to lose or gain weight.

What can be done? An anti-aging doctor can help you eliminate toxins such as heavy metals and dioxins, which speed up oxidation. Taking supplements rich in anti-oxidants and liver-supporting constituents, and maintaining a healthy digestive tract is also of vital importance to good health and disease prevention.

An anti-aging doctor can restore and balance your endocrine system using bio-identical hormone replacement, glandular therapy, and comprehensive nutritional supplementation. Good health is the best medical insurance a person can purchase, and the only way to truly defy aging.

For more information or to schedule an
appointment, please call St Johns Health Center:
503.286.4400