Aging
There is nothing you can do to stop the process of growing older – we all do that one day at a time. Growing older, however, does not equate with the scientific process of aging. Please understand this distinction at the start because it is based on science and medicine, not “pop psychology.”
Everyone grows older one day at a time but during this process we can age faster or slower than that chronology dictates. In other words, there are 40 year old people who look and feel 30 as well as 40 year old people who look and feel 50. Same chronological ages, but very different functional “ages.”
The aging process is actually the accumulation and interaction, as a group, of many diverse but
Your neighbour on the right side of your home grows equally as old, day by day, as your neighbor on the left side. Although they might age very differently. The neighbor who works 9-5 from home as an accountant, who exercises daily, eats well balanced meals low in simple sugars, red meats and hydro- genated fats, who sleeps 8 hours a night and takes a variety of helpful non fuel nutrients will age far more slowly than the other neighbor who gets up early to landscape in the blazing sun all day, who handles pesticides and drinks a few beers before dinner which consists of fast food and a chocolate sundae. Rather than going home, the second neighbor then hits the sports bar and drinks till closing then catches a few hours sleep before waking up to do the same thing again. At 40, the first neighbor will have aged to 30. At 40, the second neighbor will have aged to 55.
Again, you cannot slow or stop the process of growing older, but you can slow or even reverse the aging process. In science, we call this field, “anti-aging.”
Allowing for individual differences, which sometimes can be enormous due to simple genetic varia- tion, we think it is safe to say that the natural peak of health and fitness might be around 22 years of age. Whoa, now before everyone starts leaping off the tops of tall buildings, let us qualify that. Re- gardless of our chronological years, and even our genetic variation (to large part), there are things we can do to slow, stop or reverse the aging process. This is a scientific reality.
Before jumping right into the middle of an anti-aging debate, I would like to offer everyone a brief historical perspective. In the mid 1800’s, scientists and laypeople alike scoffed at the very idea of being able to slow down the aging process. They viewed all discussions of anti-aging as ridiculous
There is nothing you can do to stop the process of growing older – we all do that one day at a time. Growing older, however, does not equate with the scientific process of aging. Please understand this distinction at the start because it is based on science and medicine, not “pop psychology.”
Everyone grows older one day at a time but during this process we can age faster or slower than that chronology dictates. In other words, there are 40 year old people who look and feel 30 as well as 40 year old people who look and feel 50. Same chronological ages, but very different functional “ages.”
The aging process is actually the accumulation and interaction, as a group, of many diverse but
related individual processes which include genetic variations, environment and occupational factors and lifestyle choices.
Your neighbour on the right side of your home grows equally as old, day by day, as your neighbor on the left side. Although they might age very differently. The neighbor who works 9-5 from home as an accountant, who exercises daily, eats well balanced meals low in simple sugars, red meats and hydro- genated fats, who sleeps 8 hours a night and takes a variety of helpful non fuel nutrients will age far more slowly than the other neighbor who gets up early to landscape in the blazing sun all day, who handles pesticides and drinks a few beers before dinner which consists of fast food and a chocolate sundae. Rather than going home, the second neighbor then hits the sports bar and drinks till closing then catches a few hours sleep before waking up to do the same thing again. At 40, the first neighbor will have aged to 30. At 40, the second neighbor will have aged to 55.
Again, you cannot slow or stop the process of growing older, but you can slow or even reverse the aging process. In science, we call this field, “anti-aging.”
Allowing for individual differences, which sometimes can be enormous due to simple genetic varia- tion, we think it is safe to say that the natural peak of health and fitness might be around 22 years of age. Whoa, now before everyone starts leaping off the tops of tall buildings, let us qualify that. Re- gardless of our chronological years, and even our genetic variation (to large part), there are things we can do to slow, stop or reverse the aging process. This is a scientific reality.
Before jumping right into the middle of an anti-aging debate, I would like to offer everyone a brief historical perspective. In the mid 1800’s, scientists and laypeople alike scoffed at the very idea of being able to slow down the aging process. They viewed all discussions of anti-aging as ridiculous
and dangerous both to morality and to human order. Aging and death were inevitable and there was
nothing mere mortals could do to change it.
Similar beliefs were held with regard to disease. Disease was a natural event and there was nothing man could do to prevent God’s will. Well known scientists, at the time, absolutely ridiculed the notion that tiny living organisms could exist and actually cause infection and disease.
Then the 1870’s came and forward thinkers like Koch and Pasteur proved the existence and the dan- ger of the microbes we call germs. Most of the miracles of modern medicine can be traced to those discoveries.
I mention this because today, in 2015, the science of anti-aging is at a similar point as was infection and disease in the 1870’s. Science is embarking on a journey, that in the distant future, will look his- torically a lot like the history of disease treatment.
The real fact is that even in 2015 each of us, regardless of age, can do a substantial amount of things to slow the aging process up and to extend our lives. It is very popular in today’s technological world to liken our bodies to that of an automobile. On the face of it the analogy seems to fit. When new, each car is working perfectly and looking shiny and great. As time goes on, wear and tear causes the need for replacement parts and the exterior shine begins to fade. Eventually the car stops working and needs to be replaced. This analogy is fine except for the fact that we are living beings and the car is not. Incumbent in life are our miraculous powers of regeneration. The difference between humans and automobiles is that we have tiny invisible “Mr. Goodwrenches” inside each of us constantly work- ing at fixing everything that is going wrong.
One indisputable fact that you need to assimilate is that as a human being you are continually re- pairing yourself, replacing dead cells and denatured proteins, creating new mitochondria and other cellular organelles. That is the very nature of being human.
So what is aging? Simply put, aging is the massed process by which the body slows its repair func- tions. It stands to reason then that if we can stimulate the repair process, in turn, we can slow aging.
There are various main causes of our repair processes slowing down. There are natural hormone changes, oxidation (free radical damage), glycosylation (cross linking damage) and inflammation to highlight just a few.
Everyone reading this today wants to improve their health and fitness;to look and feel younger, more vibrant and fit.
Today, all we are going to need to acknowledge is that if we are older than 22, in general, our body’s natural repair processes slow and we can alter this positively as a result of certain lifestyle choices that we make.
Anti Aging
The amount of HGH secreted is a direct result of the ratio of Growth Hormone Releasing Hormone, technically referred to as Sermorelin, versus Growth Hormone Inhibiting Hormone, technically referred to as Somatostatin. This is probably a new concept to most everyone. The literature is absolutely full of talk about HGH increasing substances, but there is almost never a mention of the equally important counterbalance, that being, the hormone that actually inhibits HGH release. It stands to reason that interfering with the inhibitory chemical is at least as important, if not more so, than simply increasing systemic HGH.
Let’s talk, first, about increasing HGH. Secondly, we will discuss the absolutely essential matter of blocking the effects of Somatostatin, the HGH inhibiting hormone.
You cannot use “natural” growth hormone extracted from cadavers. The risk for disease is simply too high. The most obvious, medically relevant way of increasing circulating amounts of HGH is with synthetic HGH injections. We refer to this as Recombinant Growth Hormone Therapy. All this really amounts to are subcutaneous injections of a lab synthesized biosynthetic hormone that is identical to naturally occurring human growth hormone. A company called Genentech made the first synthetic GH in 1985 but it was a 190 amino acid match; they were one amino acid off from natural HGH. One year later Eli Lilly patented a 191 amino acid hormone that was identical to the HGH produced by the pituitary gland. The drug is called Humatrope and is the most widely used recombinant growth hormone today.
HGH injections are extraordinarily expensive, often causing the average patient over $30,000 a year. Frankly, between the cost and the inconvenience of daily injections, despite what some med- ical doctors tell you, Humatrope injections do not appear to be the best answer for raising HGH levels. Anyone who tells you they are, well, they have probably never tried a HGH therapy regime themselves.
After rejecting the idea of becoming a cash poor pincushion, there are many nutritionally based GH “intermediate” products that hold promise to increase natural circulating levels of GH. There are sublingual GH drops, amino acid secretagogues and various voodoo based lotions and po- tions. Most all of them are an utter waste.
One notable exception, which in our opinion is far and away the best method we have found to promote the secretion of HGH, is the amino compound GABA. Five to ten grams of the natural amino GABA before bed can cause a stunning number of nearly immediate changes. The scientific
Similar beliefs were held with regard to disease. Disease was a natural event and there was nothing man could do to prevent God’s will. Well known scientists, at the time, absolutely ridiculed the notion that tiny living organisms could exist and actually cause infection and disease.
Then the 1870’s came and forward thinkers like Koch and Pasteur proved the existence and the dan- ger of the microbes we call germs. Most of the miracles of modern medicine can be traced to those discoveries.
I mention this because today, in 2015, the science of anti-aging is at a similar point as was infection and disease in the 1870’s. Science is embarking on a journey, that in the distant future, will look his- torically a lot like the history of disease treatment.
The real fact is that even in 2015 each of us, regardless of age, can do a substantial amount of things to slow the aging process up and to extend our lives. It is very popular in today’s technological world to liken our bodies to that of an automobile. On the face of it the analogy seems to fit. When new, each car is working perfectly and looking shiny and great. As time goes on, wear and tear causes the need for replacement parts and the exterior shine begins to fade. Eventually the car stops working and needs to be replaced. This analogy is fine except for the fact that we are living beings and the car is not. Incumbent in life are our miraculous powers of regeneration. The difference between humans and automobiles is that we have tiny invisible “Mr. Goodwrenches” inside each of us constantly work- ing at fixing everything that is going wrong.
One indisputable fact that you need to assimilate is that as a human being you are continually re- pairing yourself, replacing dead cells and denatured proteins, creating new mitochondria and other cellular organelles. That is the very nature of being human.
So what is aging? Simply put, aging is the massed process by which the body slows its repair func- tions. It stands to reason then that if we can stimulate the repair process, in turn, we can slow aging.
There are various main causes of our repair processes slowing down. There are natural hormone changes, oxidation (free radical damage), glycosylation (cross linking damage) and inflammation to highlight just a few.
Everyone reading this today wants to improve their health and fitness;to look and feel younger, more vibrant and fit.
Today, all we are going to need to acknowledge is that if we are older than 22, in general, our body’s natural repair processes slow and we can alter this positively as a result of certain lifestyle choices that we make.
Anti Aging
As we move further into the biotechnology era,
scientists are better understanding the spe-
cific inputs to aging and how to slow, stop or
reverse the process. The first important pro-
cess involved in aging centers on the normal
decrease in certain critical chronological age
related hormones belonging to the Growth
Hormone family.
You have heard about HGH on television, on radio, in magazines and in newspapers. It is easily the “hottest” topic in anti-aging. In fact, there is a very large, ever growing group of doctors, medical scientists and biochemical researchers that consider HGH not only to be nature’s key to weight loss but also as modern science’s “Fountain of Youth.”
The role of HGH in the body is basic biochemistry and not really open to debate. There is no question that various growth hormones play a huge role in anti-aging, in decreasing body fat and increasing lean muscle and in promoting general health. The debate in science and medicine centers on whether or not people should engage in HGH injection therapy. Part of the medical community act as proponents of HGH for the average person while another part of medicine is more cautious. As scientists evaluating the whole body of research on HGH, at the moment HGH therapies do not appear to have dramatic risks or downsides unless you happen to have certain types of active tumors growing in your body. The more important issue today seems to be a more practical one, that of logistics and cost.
Human Growth Hormone (HGH or GH) is a hormone produced by the anterior pituitary gland located in the brain. HGH is a very complex hormone made up of 191 amino acids. HGH secre- tion reaches its peak in the body during adolescence and steadily declines each additional year through a person’s eighties. If you are a numbers person, here are some average HGH secretion levels:
You have heard about HGH on television, on radio, in magazines and in newspapers. It is easily the “hottest” topic in anti-aging. In fact, there is a very large, ever growing group of doctors, medical scientists and biochemical researchers that consider HGH not only to be nature’s key to weight loss but also as modern science’s “Fountain of Youth.”
The role of HGH in the body is basic biochemistry and not really open to debate. There is no question that various growth hormones play a huge role in anti-aging, in decreasing body fat and increasing lean muscle and in promoting general health. The debate in science and medicine centers on whether or not people should engage in HGH injection therapy. Part of the medical community act as proponents of HGH for the average person while another part of medicine is more cautious. As scientists evaluating the whole body of research on HGH, at the moment HGH therapies do not appear to have dramatic risks or downsides unless you happen to have certain types of active tumors growing in your body. The more important issue today seems to be a more practical one, that of logistics and cost.
Human Growth Hormone (HGH or GH) is a hormone produced by the anterior pituitary gland located in the brain. HGH is a very complex hormone made up of 191 amino acids. HGH secre- tion reaches its peak in the body during adolescence and steadily declines each additional year through a person’s eighties. If you are a numbers person, here are some average HGH secretion levels:
At 20 years old we average 500 micrograms/dayAt 40 years old we average 200 micrograms/dayAt 80 years old we average 25 micrograms/dayAs secretion of HGH lowers, our ability to repair damaged tissue as well as our ability to engage in a number of other positive, powerful metabolic activities declines.
The amount of HGH secreted is a direct result of the ratio of Growth Hormone Releasing Hormone, technically referred to as Sermorelin, versus Growth Hormone Inhibiting Hormone, technically referred to as Somatostatin. This is probably a new concept to most everyone. The literature is absolutely full of talk about HGH increasing substances, but there is almost never a mention of the equally important counterbalance, that being, the hormone that actually inhibits HGH release. It stands to reason that interfering with the inhibitory chemical is at least as important, if not more so, than simply increasing systemic HGH.
Let’s talk, first, about increasing HGH. Secondly, we will discuss the absolutely essential matter of blocking the effects of Somatostatin, the HGH inhibiting hormone.
You cannot use “natural” growth hormone extracted from cadavers. The risk for disease is simply too high. The most obvious, medically relevant way of increasing circulating amounts of HGH is with synthetic HGH injections. We refer to this as Recombinant Growth Hormone Therapy. All this really amounts to are subcutaneous injections of a lab synthesized biosynthetic hormone that is identical to naturally occurring human growth hormone. A company called Genentech made the first synthetic GH in 1985 but it was a 190 amino acid match; they were one amino acid off from natural HGH. One year later Eli Lilly patented a 191 amino acid hormone that was identical to the HGH produced by the pituitary gland. The drug is called Humatrope and is the most widely used recombinant growth hormone today.
HGH injections are extraordinarily expensive, often causing the average patient over $30,000 a year. Frankly, between the cost and the inconvenience of daily injections, despite what some med- ical doctors tell you, Humatrope injections do not appear to be the best answer for raising HGH levels. Anyone who tells you they are, well, they have probably never tried a HGH therapy regime themselves.
After rejecting the idea of becoming a cash poor pincushion, there are many nutritionally based GH “intermediate” products that hold promise to increase natural circulating levels of GH. There are sublingual GH drops, amino acid secretagogues and various voodoo based lotions and po- tions. Most all of them are an utter waste.
One notable exception, which in our opinion is far and away the best method we have found to promote the secretion of HGH, is the amino compound GABA. Five to ten grams of the natural amino GABA before bed can cause a stunning number of nearly immediate changes. The scientific
literature is full of positive studies on GABA demonstrating increased GH levels, decreased body
fat, increased lean muscle, better sleep, happier moods, less body pain, a decrease in ulcers and in
stomach problems, improved memory, more healthy skin and so on.
All in all, taking this little amino acid compound makes perfect sense to us but by itself it isn’t the whole Growth Hormone answer.
Earlier we discussed Somatostatin or Growth Hormone Inhibiting Hormone. Since this naturally occurring hormone increases with age and inhibits the release of a number of critical substances including HGH, insulin and gastrin; it doesn’t take much imagination to envision the negative role this hormone plays in our health and general vigor.
Unfortunately, since this is a relatively new field of biochemical study, there are no current pharma- ceuticals offered for sale to lessen the inhibitory effects of Somatostatin in healthy adults.
Furthermore, there are no known nutrients that directly block Somatostatin. There is hope in that we know that the neurotransmitter acetylcholine markedly interferes with Somatostatin. In other words, as acetylcholine levels rise, Somatostatin falls and as acetylcholine levels fall, Somatostatin absolute- ly skyrockets. It appears then that keeping acetylcholine levels high, which is very healthy in and of itself, is the best way to lower the negative effects of Somatostatin and increase the posi- tive effects of HGH precursors.
There is a preponderance of clinical findings indicating that acetylcholine levels can be increased by ingesting 50 mcgs. of the nutrient Huperzine A. Additional studies indicate simple Choline to be effective in this regard as well.
In the past, I went through extensive medically sponsored HGH therapy for a number of months. I found a marked increase in vigor, energy and libido as well as a steady drop in body fat and the ability to add lean muscle mass more easily. The downside, again, was the expense and of course the daily or every other day visits to your local doctor or medispa.
I have also taken GABA and found similar results with the added effect of far better sleep. While two grams is the baseline recommended dose, in this particular case a nightly dose of 5-8 worked better and seemed to mimic the actual HGH injections. A dose of 5-10 grams of GABA is safe and well tolerated by most. Starting out with 2 grams and working up seems to be a sensible strategy.
All in all, taking this little amino acid compound makes perfect sense to us but by itself it isn’t the whole Growth Hormone answer.
Earlier we discussed Somatostatin or Growth Hormone Inhibiting Hormone. Since this naturally occurring hormone increases with age and inhibits the release of a number of critical substances including HGH, insulin and gastrin; it doesn’t take much imagination to envision the negative role this hormone plays in our health and general vigor.
Unfortunately, since this is a relatively new field of biochemical study, there are no current pharma- ceuticals offered for sale to lessen the inhibitory effects of Somatostatin in healthy adults.
Furthermore, there are no known nutrients that directly block Somatostatin. There is hope in that we know that the neurotransmitter acetylcholine markedly interferes with Somatostatin. In other words, as acetylcholine levels rise, Somatostatin falls and as acetylcholine levels fall, Somatostatin absolute- ly skyrockets. It appears then that keeping acetylcholine levels high, which is very healthy in and of itself, is the best way to lower the negative effects of Somatostatin and increase the posi- tive effects of HGH precursors.
There is a preponderance of clinical findings indicating that acetylcholine levels can be increased by ingesting 50 mcgs. of the nutrient Huperzine A. Additional studies indicate simple Choline to be effective in this regard as well.
In the past, I went through extensive medically sponsored HGH therapy for a number of months. I found a marked increase in vigor, energy and libido as well as a steady drop in body fat and the ability to add lean muscle mass more easily. The downside, again, was the expense and of course the daily or every other day visits to your local doctor or medispa.
I have also taken GABA and found similar results with the added effect of far better sleep. While two grams is the baseline recommended dose, in this particular case a nightly dose of 5-8 worked better and seemed to mimic the actual HGH injections. A dose of 5-10 grams of GABA is safe and well tolerated by most. Starting out with 2 grams and working up seems to be a sensible strategy.
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