Bombshell: Explosive Medical Secrets That Will Redefine Aging (16 page)

SS:
People don’t realize they can avoid bone fractures and that it’s not just a bad stroke of luck. Everyone should be taking calcium and vitamin D to prevent bone fractures, right?

BF:
This helps, but it is not enough to maintain optimal bone density in the later years. The public and most doctors are unaware of the magnitude of bone loss suffered by women and men as they age. The sad result is that people who take calcium supplements still suffer fractures that cripple and create ancillary pathological conditions.

SS:
What else should people take to protect their bones?

BF:
Strong bones require the minerals boron, magnesium, zinc, and manganese in addition to calcium. Vitamin D should be in far higher doses than found in typical multivitamin formulas, along with sufficient potencies of vitamin K
₂
. Men need to maintain their testosterone in youthful ranges, while women should achieve a youthful balance of estrogen and progesterone.

SS:
Well, I’ve been writing in my last several books about the optimal, joyous quality of life that results when you replace the missing hormones due to aging, but I’ve also written about the protective nature of hormones in particular for strengthening bones. Would you explain why taking hormones strengthens the bones, even though one is taking supplements with enough minerals and vitamins?

BF:
Because bone’s skeletal-building cells, called
osteoblasts
, are directed by testosterone in men and progesterone in women to take up minerals from the blood and incorporate the minerals into the bone matrix. Adequate estrogen is needed by women and men to stimulate other skeletal cells, called
osteoclasts
, to remove older osteoporotic bone so that osteoblasts can pull in the minerals to build new stronger bone. Aging men and women lose these hormones and the result is significant loss of bone density that can culminate in osteoporosis and bone fracture.

SS:
That was a wonderful explanation. The body in its wisdom never ceases to amaze me. You mentioned vitamin K again. Most doctors think the only function this vitamin has in the body is to ensure proper blood clotting. We know that without proper blood-clotting factors we would bleed to death internally. Yet as people age they develop sticky platelets that can clump together and block a
vital artery in the heart or brain. How does vitamin K protect against osteoporosis and maintain healthy blood clotting?

BF:
Calcium plays critical roles throughout the body that are strictly regulated by vitamin K
₂
. If there is not enough calcium in the blood, the body will pull it from the bones to ensure other critical functions are met, such as electrolyte balance needed to keep your heart beating. As people age, they suffer an imbalance in their calcium-regulating proteins that results in too much calcium being removed from bone and deposited in the arteries, brain cells, and heart valves. These calcium-regulating proteins are controlled by vitamin K
₂
. Supplementing with vitamin K
₂
keeps calcium in the bone to maintain youthful density while keeping it out of our brain cells and arterial system where it causes disease. Interestingly, there is no danger for healthy people taking vitamin K as the body will only use enough of it to ensure necessary clotting. It will not cause abnormal clots to form in blood vessels of people unless they are on a medically supervised program designed to restrict vitamin K intake.

SS:
Let’s talk about senility. This is truly a catastrophic event.

BF:
Yes, it is, especially from the standpoint that short-term memory loss is accepted by too many doctors as “normal” aging.

SS:
I know. It disturbs me when I am out with a group of women and they refer to a memory lapse as a “senior moment” and laugh. I no longer find it funny because I realize it’s the beginning of brain loss.

BF:
You are right, and short-term memory loss can be a signal that serious underlying degenerative changes in the brain are happening. In some cases, there are circulatory disturbances that, left unchecked, result in a disabling stroke. When detected in time, relatively simple steps can be initiated to improve blood flow to the brain. In other cases, chronic inflammation is the culprit that inflicts massive damage to our brain cells. Suppressing inflammatory fires is a critical step to protecting against senility.

SS:
Then how do you restore healthy blood flow to aging brains?

BF:
At Life Extension, we perform blood tests to evaluate what risk factors may be causing blockages to occur in an individual’s blood vessels leading to his or her brain. Once we identify the underlying factors, we advise members to aggressively correct these atherogenic factors. For example, in a peer-reviewed published study, pomegranate juice when added to conventional therapy was able to restore carotid artery blood flow by a remarkable 44 percent after only one year.

SS:
I once read a report that eight ounces of pomegranate juice a day has been shown to actually reverse and flush out arterial plaque. But how do you suppress chronic inflammation?

BF:
We utilize blood tests to ascertain the degree of chronic inflammation and what may be the underlying causes. Our health advisers then help customize a nutrient and natural hormone program to suppress the inflammatory factors that create so much destruction in aging brain cells. Nutrients like DHA from fish oil and extracts from green tea can exert significant inflammation-suppressing properties in the brain. Curcumin extinguishes inflammatory fires via several established pathways. A new form of magnesium has shown the remarkable ability of increasing the density of brain synapses, which enables our neurons to communicate with one another, which in lay terms means helps restore our short-term memory function. The key is attacking senility at the first sign of memory impairment instead of waiting for full-blown dementia to manifest.

SS:
What is the most prevalent catastrophic event?

BF:
Atherosclerosis, manifesting so often as coronary artery disease, is still the leading reason why health-conscious people don’t live as long as they should. You may remember growing up, Suzanne, how men in their forties and fifties were suffering acute fatal heart attacks. The number of middle-aged people dying from acute blocked coronary arteries has plummeted over the past forty years due to better preventative measures. The burden has now shifted to people over age seventy who enjoyed healthy coronary blood flow most of their lives, but suddenly develop acute angina or heart attack that requires stenting or bypass surgery. Side effects from these invasive medical procedures plus accelerated atherosclerosis can become the catastrophic event.

SS:
What causes these people’s arteries to suddenly clog?

BF:
The underlying cause we recognized long ago is a phenomenon called
endothelial dysfunction
. We observed people in their midseventies who had only 30 percent coronary artery blockage, yet a mere two years later, they were 90 percent blocked. What had happened is around age seventy-five, the inner linings of their arteries deteriorated so quickly that plaque rapidly accumulated in what were relatively healthy arteries just a few years prior. It was not because their LDL or triglyceride levels suddenly increased. The problem was the structure and function of their endothelium (inner arterial wall) had rapidly deteriorated and was attracting atherogenic agents from the blood.

SS:
How do we protect against endothelial dysfunction?

BF:
The blood test panels that Life Extension members take annually provide clues as to what blood components may be attacking the inner arterial wall. In aging people, however, a major problem is
nitric oxide
deficit. The endothelium requires nitric oxide to maintain its structure and function. As nitric oxide levels diminish with age, our arteries lose their ability to shield themselves from the many atherogenic blood compounds, cholesterol being just one of them.

SS:
So how do we boost nitric oxide levels?

BF:
It used to be thought that if enough of the amino acid
arginine
was taken, one could maintain adequate endothelial nitric oxide levels. The problem is that arginine is rapidly degraded in the body, so relatively little is available to create a sustainable volume of nitric oxide needed to protect the endothelium. To overcome the inability of arginine to produce sustainable nitric oxide, we looked at the problem from another direction. We knew most people produced enough nitric oxide, but the loss of natural antioxidant enzymes was causing the nitric oxide to degrade too rapidly. So we compounded several plant-derived antioxidants that targeted the free radicals that destroy nitric oxide. The results from published scientific studies show that these plant-derived antioxidants spare nitric oxide and improve blood flow to critical organs of the body such as the heart and brain. It is regrettable that conventional cardiologists have not caught on to these natural approaches that can partially reverse atherosclerosis.

SS:
One of the reasons I take pomegranate along with my resveratrol, a powerful and miraculous supplement, is to decrease and hopefully eliminate inflammation and also to keep the blood in my arteries flowing perfectly. How far behind are cardiologists today when it comes to treating and preventing coronary artery disease?

BF:
About twenty-five years behind. Cardiologists today recognize the dangers of elevated cholesterol, LDL, and triglycerides, but many remain in the dark about vascular disease blood markers such as fibrinogen, C-reactive protein, hormone imbalances, and other factors that contribute to atherosclerosis as people age. Cardiologists today are failing to control all the known risk factors that cause coronary artery blockages in aging people. The result is too many maturing individuals are requiring hospitalizations that only temporarily restore blood flow. Complications from hospital procedures, such as stroke, can be the catastrophic event that destroys a lifetime of
healthy living. Congestive heart failure is another problem people with severely blocked coronary arteries encounter. Of course, sudden death heart attacks still kill over 156,000 Americans each year, so taking aggressive actions to maintain healthy circulation is critical to an extended healthy life.

SS:
Elizabeth Taylor died in 2011 from congestive heart failure. I’m sure she had all the very best doctors. What did they miss and what does Life Extension recommend to improve cardiac output?

BF:
Those suffering congestive heart failure need to restore the energy-producing capacity of their heart muscle cells. This involves taking the proper doses each day of acetyl-L-carnitine, taurine, and a special form of coenzyme Q
₁₀
called
ubiquinol
. A study on patients with severe congestive heart failure showed that 450 mg a day of conventional coQ
₁₀
did not improve the heart’s ability to pump blood, but that 450 mg a day of ubiquinol improved recovery rates from congestive heart failure by 88 percent. In addition to these nutrients, Life Extension has uncovered solid data showing that restoring hormones like DHEA also improves cardiac output. I doubt Elizabeth Taylor’s mainstream doctors were aware of this research showing that congestive heart failure is reversible.

SS:
Okay, tell us, what steps do we need to take to prevent a catastrophic event from destroying our bodies?

BF:
We have found that virtually anyone over the age of forty has markers in their blood that indicate their future disease risk. When people join the Life Extension Foundation, they gain free access to health advisers who can help identify an individual’s particular vulnerability. We use blood test results and other data to customize a personalized longevity program to minimize one’s odds of suffering a catastrophic health event.

SS:
I think my readers will appreciate knowing they can take advantage of all your sophisticated testing and supplementation by joining Life Extension. It’s one-stop shopping for lack of a better term. I don’t think today’s doctors are paying enough attention to people’s medical issues as their patients grow older. It seems that most physicians accept age-related disease as being normal and are not recommending aggressive programs to protect against it. I’ve often heard it said to me by my readers that their doctors have said, “Well, what do you expect? You are old!”

BF:
You’re so correct, Suzanne. Few physicians are taught how to manage the multiple disorders caused by aging, and they fail to
lead their patients through this period when they are susceptible to encountering a deadly catastrophic event. People join our Life Extension Foundation so they can learn to manage their own bodily issues with personalized guidance by our knowledgeable health advisory staff. Members receive a 110-page magazine every month that keeps them updated on the latest medical breakthroughs and, most important, that informs them how to utilize this information to maintain or restore their youthful vitality.

SS:
Thanks again for all the great information, Bill.

BF:
My pleasure, Suzanne.