I am taking this day, my birthday, to write about healthy aging. As I turn 65, I remember how annoyed I was once I started to get calls, emails and flyers about Medicare and Medicare supplements. However, the day I signed up for Medicare I remembered something. I had sent a simple fingerstick blood sample to GLYCAN AGE to measure my biologic age. This technology measures levels of inflammation in your body by analyzing the complex sugar molecules that attach to IgG antibodies we all produce daily. By comparing samples to a database of over 150,000 people, several inflammation scores are put together to produce a biologic age. When I tracked down my report which had been stuck in a spam folder, I was pleasantly surprised. My biologic age was 38!

We had previously thought that life expectancy, health and disease was 50% genetics and 50% environmental/lifestyle, but new evidence suggest that environmental/lifestyle factors play a greater role, say 75%. This is where anti-aging medicine comes into play. Conventional medicine has traditionally focused on treating disease with less emphasis on disease prevention. Anti-Aging medicine focuses on maintaining your health span and uses biomarkers to “see into the future”. The GLYCAN AGE testing is one such biomarker. We now have a greater appreciation for the impact of inflammation on aging- in fact the new buzz word is INFLAMAGING combining inflammation and aging. We are all progressively becoming more inflamed as we age. I recommend doing this test early in adulthood to provide a baseline and guide prevention efforts.

So what do could you do if your biologic age is greater than your chronologic age? There are several “levers to pull” to favorably impact your biologic age. The utility of this biomarker is that you can pull a lever, for example, quitting smoking or losing weight, and recheck your GLYCAN AGE test as soon as 6 months later to see how your effort to improve your health has impacted your inflammation and biologic age.

Lever #1 – Exercise

We all know we should exercise regularly, and current guidelines suggest 150 minutes per week as a target goal. The data support benefits from as little as 10 minutes per day and diminishing return when exercising more than 150 minutes per week. A combination of aerobic and strength/resistance training with more emphasis on strength/resistance is my exercise prescription with lower weights and slow deliberate range of motion.

Lever #2- Hormone Optimization

Several independent sources confirm that hormone levels impact the rate of aging. Analysis of the GLYCAN AGE database revealed that men progressively become more inflamed in a linear fashion as they age but women have an uptick in levels of inflammation in the peri-menopausal period-before the levels of estrogen fade away and periods stop. It is well established that pre-menopausal women have some protection against cardiovascular disease up until menopause then risk increases to equal or exceed the risk for men. Women don’t need to wait until after menopause to consider hormone replacement therapy and men can benefit when symptoms of fatigue, muscle loss, poor libido and loss of energy prompt measurement of testosterone levels.

Lever #3 – Nutrition/Supplementation

Even our best efforts to eat healthy can fall short of optimizing our nutritional status. Many of us take supplements that have been recommended by Aunt Sally, Dr Oz or other fitness personalities. After years of struggling to make good nutritional supplement recommendations, I am confident in recommending the supplements from Pharmanex/NUSKIN. The foundational product, LifePak, is an advanced nutritional formula that includes vitamins and minerals, phytonutrients, and carotenoids to support your entire antioxidant network. I use the Pharmanex bio photonic scanner right here in the office to measure skin carotenoids levels- carotene like antioxidants that are deposited in the skin that correlate with your body’s total antioxidant levels. Carotenoids are found in orange, red and even purple foods. Remember I said inflammation correlates with aging. Maintaining high antioxidant levels is associated with neutralizing free radicals that cause inflammation, disease and even cancer. Pharmanex has proprietary Age LOC products that target how are genes are expressed- which genes are turned on and off at different stages of life. By comparing the gene heat maps of younger and older persons, these supplements have been formulated to improve gene expression back to a more favorable younger person pattern.

There are other levers to pull include adequate sleep, stress reduction/mindfulness, adrenal support and telomerase activators. If you want to manage how you age, consider a consultation. You can Manage How You Age!