Healthy and happy older couple meditating together in a tropical garden

Youthification From Within

The consequences of aging range from inconvenient to devastating. Maintaining our youth is synonymous with maintaining energy and health so we are able to stay fully engaged in life. Aging is associated with not only changes in looks, but with how we feel and think. Our most powerful anti-aging tools actually come from within. Anti-aging medicine is the application of medicine that empowers one to not only look better but to feel better. It turns out that the many of the same therapies that actually help control conditions like heart disease and diabetes stay  can be utilized to decrease wrinkling, hair loss and weight gain. Looking and feeling older is not  inevitably a quick downward spiral, but a process that we can either hasten or slow by either giving or depriving our body of certain nutrients among other things. 
So how can we maintain our youth as long as possible? Let’s take a look at what the experts say.
1) Exercise
“Lifelong physical activity could protect against age-related loss of muscle mass and function, according to research published in The Journal of Physiology. Individuals aged 68 and above who were physically active throughout their life have healthier ageing muscle that has superior function and is more resistant to fatigue compared to inactive individuals, both young and old.” ” “The single most important message from this study, is that even a little exercise seems to go a long way, when it comes to protecting against the age-related decline in muscle function. This is an encouraging finding which can hopefully spur more people to engage in an activity that they enjoy.”(Science Daily, March 21, 2022)
2) Act and feel younger mentally
“Self-perceived age reflects appraisals of health, physical limitations, and well-being in later life. Older people typically feel younger than their chronologic age, and it is thought that those who feel younger than their actual age have reduced mortality…..We found that self-perceived age predicted all-cause and cardiovascular mortality during the following 8 years. Although baseline health, physical disability, and health behavior accounted for some of the association, after adjusting for all covariates, there remained a 41% greater mortality hazard in people who felt older than their actual age compared with those who felt younger than their actual age. Our study used data from a large nationally representative survey and a simple measure of self-perceived age. We tested for reverse causality by excluding deaths within 12 months of baseline and found that the association was not due to participants in the terminal phases of their lives rating themselves as feeling older than their real age.” (Rippon I, Steptoe A. Feeling Old vs Being OldAssociations Between Self-perceived Age and MortalityJAMA Intern Med. 2015;175(2):307–309. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.6580)
3) Focus on living better, not just living longer
“The desire to unlock the secrets of immortality has likely been around as long as humans’ awareness of death. But a long life span is not the same as a long health span, says S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who was not involved in the work. “The focus shouldn’t be on living longer but on living healthier longer,” he says.”“Death is not the only thing that matters,” Whitson says. “Other things, like quality of life, start mattering more and more as people experience the loss of them.” (Scientific American, May 25, 2021)
4) Take your vitamins (and other supplements)
“Biochemist Bruce Ames from the University of California, Berkeley, has developed a list of 41 vitamins and minerals such as magnesium and omega-3 fatty acids that he says may help with healthy aging. These substances help keep the body running smoothly. If supplies run low, the body may have to pull resources from tasks like repairing DNA damage that keep cells younger and healthier, but keeping supplies up could prevent this, according to Ames.” (Harvard School of Public Health News, 2018)