Protecting the Body

Protecting our Brain

Probably the most valuable part of our body. Without our brains operating at peak performance, we will have a hard time enjoying and doing all the things that are valuable to us.

Fortunately, the long-held common belief that our brains have to age like our bodies has proven completely wrong. Research shows that if we treat our brain in the right way, there is no reason that we can not be as sharp and witty at the age of 80 as we are at 40.

Treating our brain the right way is a threefold approach:

• Fully implement the procedures of the foundation of nutrition, exercise, detox, and mental well-being. Especially the mental well-being part, including meditation

• Support our brain's physical needs by supplementing compounds that either decline with age or have shown to protect the brain and promote brain longevity substantially

• Use our brain, train it like any other muscle in our body. We are not talking about doing crosswords here but real challenges. Continuously learning new things, being creative, picking up new challenges. Retirement and the resulting lack of real mental challenges contribute to brain degeneration. If we do what we love (and we are :-)), why stop at an arbitrary age that society imposes on us for whatever reason? 
  
  We continuously choose our challenges and keep going for them, hopefully for a very, very long time

Brain Longevity (Reading List)

Age-Related Cognitive Decline (lifeextension.com)

Protecting our Cardio-Vascular System

To avoid the primary modes of age-related malfunction of our heart and blood vessels, in the form of high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, stroke, and heart attacks, we work on reducing the numerous major risk factors that contribute to these catastrophic events.

• We discuss this in  'Preventing Diseases'

Protecting our Skin

Our skin is by far our largest organ and the one that is extremely exposed to our environment.

There are multiple ways in which we can reduce its everyday burden:

• Reduce the toxic load on our skin by using non-toxic, organic, gluten free body care whenever possible

• Limit exposure to the sun and use high UV protection (organic/mineral) if exposure cannot be avoided

• Supplement with Polypodium leucotomos a plant extract that bolsters the skin's defenses and reduces the destructive effects of UV radiation from within

To support our aging skin, we can topically apply Acetyl Tetrapeptide-2 that mimics the body's own Thymopoietin hormone, which levels diminish as we age.

Polypodium leucotomos (examine.com)

Unleash Your Skin’s Internal Defenses (lifeextension.com)

Unique Peptide Repairs Aging Skin (lifeextension.com)

Protecting our Vision

Probably our most valuable sense, and it deserves special protection and care.

We do so by:

• Implementing the core building blocks to lower all risk factors for healthy aging is of particular importance for the eyes since the degenerative processes of aging will have a directly 'visible' effect, like clouding or stiffening of the lenses due to cross-linking of glucose and proteins, which is dramatically accelerated by high blood sugar

• Supplementing with compounds that have a proven track record of protecting the vital component of our vision system over time

Protecting Our Eyes Against Time-Induced Damage (lifeextension.com)

Protecting our Bones

The single most significant threat to our skeletal system as we age is osteoporosis: bone loss because the body breaks down more of our bones than it rebuilds.

We confront this challenge by:

• Addressing the risk factors that can be controlled and adverted by diet, exercise, detox and mental well-being including insulin resistance, high blood sugar, glycation, oxidation, inflammation, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, lack of exercise, lack of certain trace minerals, chronic stress and cardiovascular disease

• Addressing the factors that we monitor and counteract in 'Personalized Prevention' such as vitamin K, calcium, vitamin D, excess sex hormone binding globulin and low testosterone

• Supplementing compounds that have shown to promote healthy bones

see more: Osteoporosis (lifeextension.com)

Protecting our Joints

Motion and moving without pain is a significant contributor to our quality of life. Arthritis is the loss of the cartilage that enables the movement of our joints without friction. It is a significant health concern as we age.  Arthritis can trouble younger people too, due to joint injuries or continuous heavy (ab)use in high-impact sports (such as jogging).

No matter our age, there are some things that we can do to minimize the risk factors and enable our body to rebuild the cartilage as it is needed in a multi-fold approach by:

• Implementing the foundation building blocks to eliminate or at least significantly reduce risk factors for disease such as obesity, systemic inflammation, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial dysfunction

• Supplementing with compounds that are known to lower systemic inflammation or support the rebuilding of cartilage

• Reducing our everyday load on our joints by wearing customized orthopedic inlays in our shoes, sneakers, and sports shoes whenever possible

• Cutting high-impact sports like jogging to an absolute limit and replacing going on long runs by short interval sprint training, which are far more efficient anyhow

• Using our Five-Fingers instead of regular running shoes, allowing us to efficiently run on the forefoot, which is way less taxing on our joints than running in regular shoes

see more: Arthritis – Osteoarthritis (lifeextension.com)

Protecting our Muscles

Besides Osteoporosis and Arthritis, Sarcopenia, the degenerative loss of skeletal muscle in mass, quality and strength is the third primary foe trying to rob us of our mobility as we age. The loss of muscle mass happens at 0.5-1% per year after the age of 25. The overall progression is determined by the initial amount of muscle mass and the speed at which aging decreases muscle mass.

In addition to a healthy lifestyle as proposed in the foundation, there are several strategies to counter this unfortunate consequence of aging:

• Provide our body with sufficient, high-quality protein to maintain and build muscle mass

• Engage in high-intensity weight training as described in the exercise section to stimulate muscle growth

• Implement a testosterone replacement therapy, bringing our testosterone levels back up to where they used to be at the age of 25

Protecting our Lung

As we age our lung function decreases, thus diminishing our capability to import oxygen and export carbon dioxide, which reduces our overall available energy. Part of the capacity loss is due to glycation, which renders our lung and its muscle less flexible and results in reduced pumping volume.

To counter the aging of our lung as much as possible we:

• Do not smoke. Smoking is the single most important risk factor for developing lung cancer

• Engage in regular high-intensity exercise to train our overall aerobic capability

• Lower our rate of glycation by implementing a low GL, evolutionary style diet

Protecting our Liver

Our liver is the main chemical factory of our body. Its purpose is twofold. Food broken down in the digestive tract is sent to the liver which further processes it to provide the body with its essential building blocks like blood glucose. On the other hand, waste products of our metabolic processes are sent to the liver for detoxification, to either render them harmless and ready them for excretion or to reuse them for further processing.

The liver has to detoxify itself and toxins, that either overwhelm it or cannot be handled at all, are stored in our body fat or in the liver itself. Stored toxins in the liver degrade its performance, attack it and make future detoxification even less efficient.

We can support our liver in its twofold task by:

• Implementing an organic, evolutionary diet to ensure the incoming toxic load is minimized, and we are provided with the best possible raw material for further processing

• Helping our liver to detoxify itself, by supplementing compounds that are known support it in the task

• Detoxifying our liver by undergoing a "Liver Cleanse"  with supplements that trigger the elimination of stored toxins in the liver through stool and urine

Liver Detox (renewlife.com)

Protecting our Mitochondria

Mitochondria are small bacteria like organelles within our cells that are responsible for converting the energy sources of our food into the cell's energy source - ATP. Mitochondria have their own DNA that encodes the proteins necessary for the energy conversion process. Due to the high amount of free radicals produced by this conversion, the mitochondrial DNA is under constant attack on its integrity, and thus highly susceptible to mutations. The resulting dysfunctions and their secondary effects are supposed to be one of the seven key drivers of aging and age-related diseases.

Unfortunately, this damage is a direct consequence of the way our biochemistry is designed. There is no way of avoiding it altogether. However, in the future, we will be able to either repair cells that have overtaken by mutated mitochondria and rendered dysfunctional or at least remove them from our bodies.

Meanwhile, there are multiple ways in which we can support our mitochondria, optimize their function and minimize the damage done to them by:

• Optimizing the energy transport, especially the transport of fat to our mitochondria by supplementing L-Carnitine

• Stimulating our cells to produce new mitochondria by exercising and by supplementing PQQ

• Lowering our metabolic rate and thus the damage being caused by implementing calorie restriction or supplementing CR-mimetic supplements

• Compensating the excess production of free radicals by supplementing conventional antioxidants like R-Lipoic Acid and CoQ10

• Supplementing with a new type of antioxidants especially targeted at the mitochondria
  
  

Rejuvenate Your Cells by Growing New Mitochondria (lifeextension.com)

Reverse Brain Cell Death by Growing New Mitochondria (lifeextension.com)

Our Aging Mitochondria (lifeextension.com)

Preventing damage from mitochondrial mutations (sens.org)