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by Dr.
Michael Colgan
Most
of the people who take anti-aging programs with the Colgan Institute are
already working on longevity before coming to us. Yet many of them make little
effort to avoid the major degenerative diseases. Instead they are gulled by
the gaggle of books on aging that advocate mega-vitamins, hormone injections,
exotic anti-aging drugs, fasting, yoga, enemas, meditation and endless
varieties of bodily gyrations as the way to beat the Grim Reaper.
It’s not
that these things are useless. But if you fail to take care of the risks for
major diseases, then all the rest is a wash.
Don’t
rely on medicine to do it for you.
Almost all of medicine’s attempts to
combat degeneration are directed at end-stage disease after it has ravaged the
body. They are principally palliative strategies of symptomatic relief, that
reduce the suffering and slow the progress of entrenched and incurable
illness.
Recipients of this medicine are the aged infirm, that is most of the
32 million Americans over age 65, that now crowd our hospitals, nursing homes,
and city streets. It is a sight reminiscent of Jonathan Swift’s island of
Struldbrugs, aged and ailing, hanging on to life by a thread.
Consequently,
the public tends to view extended lifespan as the dubious privilege of
becoming doddering geriatrics, requiring constant medical care just to keep
them out of the cemetery.Based on the current poor
health status of older Americans, the Center For Disease Control predicts that
one in every two Americans living today will end their lives in nursing homes
unable to care for themselves. Yet, when I ask in my lectures "How many
folk here plan to spend their latter years babbling, in diapers, being fed
with a spoon?" not a single hand goes up.
This public picture of
suffering longevity bears no relation to the efforts of real anti-aging
medicine, namely to prevent the bodily damage that causes aging. Our efforts
aim to avoid or neutralize the major risks for degenerative disease and
disorder, and to provide the body with the precise building materials that
enable it to renew tissues and organs exactly as they are in a healthy young
adult. The result is a body that continues to be biologically young, even
though it must grow chronologically old.
In a nutshell, medical science has
now advanced sufficiently to maintain a 30-year-old body that has seen 100
birthdays. At the Colgan Institute we aim to be skiing, horseriding, and
dancing well past 100, laughing all the way.
To achieve the first part of
this aim - avoiding the major risks for degeneration - is easy. All you have
to do is abandon conventional preconceptions of disease, gain a little
knowledge of the way the body works, and learn to tread a different path from
the madding urban crowd.
The first preconception to
abandon is that degenerative disease is quick: one year you’re healthy, the
next an invalid. All the major degenerative diseases, that together claim over
85% of American lives, are slow, long-term processes that invade your body
when you are relatively young.
There they grow insidiously for many years,
waiting silently for a traumatic life event or general decay to reduce host
resistance. Only then do they show themselves as symptoms of full-blown,
crippling, and usually incurable disease.The tumors of most cancers
for example, are not the disease, but only the visible symptoms of systemic
bodily decline.
The time to begin to avoid degenerative disease is now.
While
it is still silent and symptomless, you can stop and even reverse its
progress. Your health at 80, 90 and 100 is the dividend you receive from your
investment in health today. Starting a prevention program today is the only
way to avoid degenerative disease in later life.
Cardiovascular disease
includes atherosclerosis, heart disease, and cerebrovascular disease. Together
they now cause 40% of all deaths in America. But death statistics can
sometimes mislead you. According to the death records, atherosclerosis causes
only 0.8% of deaths directly. But by choking your arteries, it triggers the
heart attacks and strokes that cause the bulk of cardiovascular deaths. Thus,
atherosclerosis is the single biggest risk factor to avoid. Fortunately, it’s
a man-made problem so it can be un-made.
The first documented case of
coronary atherosclerosis was reported by Dr. James Herrick in the Journal of
the American Medical Association in 1912. The disease was so rare that Paul
Dudley White, famous cardiologist of the time, spent the next decade searching
and found only three cases. Seventy-seven years later, the same medical
journal reported that 60 million American adults have atherosclerosis.
Where
did it come from? We did it all to ourselves.
As a beginning research
fellow at Wellington hospital in New Zealand, I assisted in measurement of
isolated societies, who ate traditional low-fat diets, and showed no rise in
cholesterol with age. Thus it could not be a normal consequence of human
aging. In a presentation to the World Health Organization Pacific Conference
in 1971, we showed that high cholesterol results from bodily damage caused by
fats, and could be brought down to the level of a healthy 25 year-old (200
mg/dl), simply by reducing fat intake. Our research grant was cut for
"wild speculation."
In 1985 the American Heart
Association made its official advice to reduce the runaway cardiovascular
diseases in America, that serum cholesterol should not exceed 200 mg/dl,
saturated fats should total no more than 10%, and total fats no more than 30%
of daily calories.
I stuck the news clipping to my letterhead, and sent it to
the old professors who had cut our grant with one word written below ---
Gotcha!
Eminent physician Dr.
William Castelli, is the leading researcher in cardiovascular disease in
America. In a recent media interview he sums up 50 years of cholesterol
research with a statement all of us should take to heart: "I have not
seen one case of coronary heart disease in anyone with a cholesterol count
under 150."
Reducing cholesterol levels to below 168 mg/dl, the level
beyond which cardiovascular risk starts to rise, is easy. Just eliminate the
above environmental risks.
Here are 10 simple principles that cost almost
nothing, but eliminate most of your risk for all cardiovascular diseases, and
a lot of other diseases besides. These principles do more to inhibit aging,
than all the expensive hormones, drugs and slick technological tomfoolery put
together.
1. Don’t smoke or
associate with smokers.
2. Eat a diet with no more
than 25% total fats, containing less than 10% of saturated or trans-fats
(Products that contain hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats, mass
produced cooking oils, margarines, all fast foods, most baked goods, cookies,
muffins, cakes and chips are high in trans-fats).
3. Exercise a minimum of 20
minutes per day including both weight exercise and cardiovascular exercise.
4. Eat a low-sugar diet.
Avoid chocolate, candy, soft drinks, and most sports bars.
5. Keep bodyfat below 15%
for males, 20% for females.
6. Eat a low sodium, high
potassium diet.
7. Eat a low-acid diet.
8. Eat 30-40 grams of fiber
daily.
9. Take a strong
multi-vitamin/antioxidant formula daily.
10. Leave high stress
situations. Stay cool.
Excerpted from Colgan
Chronicles, Vol. 4, No. 1, © Apple Publishing Co. Ltd. Used with permission.
Info: www.colganchronicles.com.
Michael Colgan,
Ph.D., CCN is keynote speaker at the Canadian Health Food Association Expo
East Public Health & Fitness Symposium in Toronto, Sunday, September 22,
2002 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. His books are available from www.applepublishing.com.
Email: team@colganinstitute.com
or visit www.colganinstitute.com.
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