PREVENTING DISEASE AND MODIFYING THE AGING PROCESS - A MIXTURE OF PROVEN TESTS AND ACTIONS, GOOD SCIENCE, AND WISHFUL THINKING

(March 2003)

The universal desire for good health and long life provides virtually unlimited opportunity for those wishing to take advantage of those desires. The co-mingling of health promotion-disease prevention and anti-aging gives the entrepreneurs even greater opportunity to persuade the public to spend a lot of money on tests, actions, medications, and dietary supplements that offer hope, but are often based on little more than wishful thinking.

It is critical that everyone understand that there are two separate issues. The first is prevention of specific diseases (especially heart disease, cancer, and stroke) that occur more frequently as people grow older and often cause premature deaths or severe illnesses. The second is modifying or reversing aging itself so people can live ten, twenty, or forty years longer. The two are very different.

Question 1. Can we prevent specific diseases so people can avoid premature deaths and live longer, healthier good quality lives? The answer is unequivocally yes, and that would increase life expectancy at birth on average from the current almost 80 years in the United States and other developed countries (70 years world wide) to between 90 and 110 years. That is the purpose of our Healthful Life Program.

Our Program consists of seventeen tests and actions, including:

Regular blood pressure determinations

Blood tests for cholesterol, high-density cholesterol (HDL - good cholesterol),glucose (sugar)

Regular PAP smears and mammograms

Screening for bowel cancer

Updated immunizations

Glaucoma screening

Weight control

Seat belt use

Osteoporosis screening for women

No smoking

Low back exercises

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We also recommend regular exercise (including moderately vigorous exercise, if possible) and good nutrition with a focus on: dietary (or supplement) intake of folic acid; calcium intake; fruits and vegetables; soluble and insoluble fiber; and oily fish.

If everybody followed the Healthful Life Program and corrected abnormalities, there would be a substantially reduced risk of major diseases (including heart disease, cancer, and stroke).

In the next few years, we will have tests and actions that will reduce risk even further for all the major diseases that affect us as we grow older. We will also have better treatment for serious, often life-threatening, diseases and we will be able to prevent and treat more effectively diseases that can ruin the quality of life, such as Alzheimer’s.

Despite wildly optimistic pronouncements, we will not have life without disease; nevertheless, preventing and controlling diseases will increase life expectancy significantly. The public will still have to distinguish what we really know from exaggeration, misinformation, self-promoting sales pitches, and even outright charlatanism. That is what the Healthful Life Program and this website are all about - we tell you what we know for sure, what we do not know for sure, what you should be doing to promote your health, what you do not need to be doing at present.

Question 2. Can we actually change the aging process itself (not just specific diseases that occur as we grow older)? The answer is a resounding no! There is no anti-aging diet, medicine, supplement, magic pill, potion, etc that will, by itself (unrelated to a specific disease), allow you to live five, ten, or twenty years longer.

Here is a partial list of drugs, vitamins, etc that have been promoted as modifying the aging process and, thereby, prolonging life span.

None has been documented to extend human life by one day, let alone by one or five or ten years.

Vitamins A (beta carotene), C, E

Other antioxidants

B complex vitamins

Selenium

Chromium picolinate

Melatonin

Coenzyme Q10

Ginkgo biloba

Thyroid hormone

DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone)

Flavonoids

Omega 3 fatty acids

Zinc

Lycopenes (found particularly in tomatoes)

Growth hormone or growth hormone precursors, such as arginine, glutamine, glycine, lysine, tryptophane

Amino acids

Estrogens

This is only a partial list. Proponents and entrepreneurs will say their favorites have been shown to do something in the test tube or in animals that interferes with something that has been associated with aging - for example, substances that act as antioxidants and quench free radicals which have been associated with aging. That makes the antioxidants worth looking at, but that is only step one. You have to be able to show that whatever you are promoting actually can interfere with human aging and prolong life. Nothing on the above list has met that standard.

In the near future, will we be able to modify aging in humans? The answer is unequivocally yes. Many good scientists are working on that project and they are producing exciting results in multiple areas - discovering aging or age-preventing genes; studying materials on our chromosomes that control cell life; understanding the mechanisms of anti-aging in animals that result from reducing caloric intake; transplanting genes to quench free radicals. It is all very exciting, but we are still some years away from any of these findings being tested or showing results in humans.

We are experiencing both good science and, unfortunately, irresponsible promotion of anti-aging medications, dietary supplements, or other substances.

What should you be doing?

(Some anti-aging "experts", while promoting inadequately documented drugs, dietary supplements, etc, also do include tests, urge actions, etc similar to Healthful Life to prevent specific diseases - such as heart attacks, cancer, and stroke).