Every morning when we wake up, we are older than the previous night when we went to sleep. This is inevitable. It is a continuous and unrelenting slow, steady, unavoidable march into old age. No matter how smart you are, how educated you are, how rich you are, where you live, how beautiful you are, we are each of us affected by aging.
Some people find this a sobering, or even depressing, reality. Others don’t dwell on it too much, and go about their lives.
Wake Up Call
Every so often, we encounter a startling “wake up call” when something suddenly goes wrong with our body. Many people, especially women, take closer account of what is happening, as they are generally much more attuned to their appearance than men are. Men are more interested in maintaining function. Men are “fixers”. They pay attention when things “break”.
Women are much more attuned to subtleties of the changes in their appearance such as skin, hair, nails, weight and muscle tone, to name a few.
Regardless of what the stimulus is for men or women to “take notice” of the aging deterioration of their body, the level of concern is often equivalent and significant.
I see people every day who consult me with the desire to slow down or even reverse the changes in their body associated with the natural progression of getting older.
Throwing Money at the Aging Process
Women will often throw considerable amounts of money at the problem in the form of reconstructive cosmetic procedures such as filler, botox, breast implants, tummy tucks, and plastic surgery. Men have been known to be almost as interested in corrective procedures such as hair restoration, personal trainers, muscle building supplements and libido and sexual performance enhancers.
Both sexes are increasingly concerned with slowing the aging process.
Unfortunately, anti-aging has become a BIG BUSINESS (140 Billion dollars) especially among Baby Boomers, who now make up the largest percentage (approximately 20%) of the general population.
Whatever Happened to the Woodstock Generation?
The Hippie Generation or Woodstock Generation, has now become the Older Generation. Incredible. (My 50th High School reunion is next year — YIKES!) When we were protesting the Vietnam War, aging was the furthest thing from our collective consciousness. Now it has become a priority.
So, here we find ourselves. Many of us are still rebelling against reality, just like we did in the 60’s. The difference is that now we don’t have the hair to go with it! But we do have more money and we dress better!
What Should I Do to Age Better and Stay Healthier?
When I’m asked “what should I do to age better, and stay healthier?” my response has evolved over the past 31 years in medicine, in two arenas.
These are two tremendous topics in medicine today. And, coincidentally, both are extremely controversial. Traditional medicine, unfortunately, doesn’t believe in Preventive Medicine. Traditional Medicine is Sick Medicine.
What is “Sick Medicine”?
When you go to your HMO doctor for a check up, he will run a plethora of tests on you. If everything is “normal” for your age, he will tell you there is nothing that needs to be done now, and you should check back in next year. Basically, what that means is ‘”You’re not sick right now, so there’s nothing I can do for you. Come back next year and let’s see if you’re sick then.”
If we work on balancing your hormones and support your immune system, or detoxify you so you DON’T get sick, I will be criticized by the medical “authorities” for “practicing unproven medicine” because it doesn’t fit the traditional model of Sick Medicine. And, your insurance company won’t pay for it, because you are not “sick”. It’s bizarre.
When I injected my torn rotator cuff shoulder injury 25 times with ozone and healed it, avoiding surgery, you would think insurance companies would be thrilled to pay $2000 for ozone as opposed to paying $50,000 for surgery. But they are not. What an extraordinary business model!
The Best Health Enhancing Treatments
Hormone replacement and Ozone therapy are two of the best health enhancing treatment modalities I have come across in my entire medical career. And they are what I focus on these days with my patients, with excellent results.
When hormones decline so does our health, as aging accelerates.
As our immune system ages, function declines, thus lending us more susceptible to infection, autoimmune diseases and cancer.
We live in a toxic modern world. We are continuously bombarded with toxins in our food and environment. The oceans have become toxic. We are perpetually surrounded by plastic. It is getting to critical proportions. All of this is an assault on the immune system, which was developed in Paleolithic times (hundreds of thousands of years before these toxins ever existed), and which was never designed to handle the amount of toxic exposure we face today.
Hormone replacement can help maintain normal physiologic function as we age. And Ozone therapy can significantly boost and support the immune system to remain robust enough to battle our toxic world.
I will be writing more about Ozone Therapy and Hormone Balancing in future editions.
But in the meantime if you care to read more information, check out my Monograph The REDDI Plan. A Five Step Program to Maintain Optimal Health as we Age.
STAY WELL.
UNTIL WE READ AGAIN
