Chapter 16: The Fourteen-Day YOU Extended Warranty Plan
Chapter 18: YOU Getting Stronger
Most of us think ageing happens like this: we go on our way, living happily through life, until one day we start to feel old, and the symptoms domino right before our cataract-clouded eyes. Our bones creak, our backs hurt, we go blank when trying to think of our neighbours’ names, we hate driving at night, we can’t play golf any more, we can’t hear what our spouses are saying, and our sex lives pretty much come down to brushing up against the washing machine. Soon we’re eating dinner at three-thirty and our primary goal of the day is staying awake long enough to catch Countdown.
To us, that approach means you’re drowning in life – not bathing in the beauty of it. We’re here to challenge that perception of ageing and create a new way of thinking about “anti-ageing medicine”. The traditional focus of the medical community has been on treating chronic diseases and reversing acute illnesses associated with ageing – cancer, heart disease, stroke. The assumption was clear: since heart disease and cancer alone account for over 50 percent of all deaths, you could live maybe 50 percent longer if you could avoid the big killers. As it turns out, this isn’t what would happen. As devastating as these diseases are, wiping them out as your killer increases your average life expectancy by only about nine and a half years – not the thirty to forty years that you would expect. Why? Because something else takes their place.
To add serious years to your life – and life to your years – you have to lower your risk for all diseases. And the only way to do that is to slow your rate of ageing on the cellular level. Curing cancer or any other disease does not necessarily do anything to change the nature or speed of your bodily ageing process. That’s because ageing and disease – although they interact with each other – aren’t the same thing. As we grow older, all of our systems slowly deteriorate, which makes us more vulnerable to disease. By slowing the ageing of our cells while simultaneously preventing disease, we can enjoy not only a higher quality of life but a much longer one as well. This is where we’re taking YOU.
What Is Your RealAge?
Throughout the book, we’ll refer to your RealAge – that is, a formula designed to figure out your biological age based on your lifestyle and behaviours, rather than your simple calendar age. Do good things, and your RealAge is much younger than your calendar age. Do bad things, and you can have the body of an oldster even if the calendar tells you that you haven’t hit thirty yet. One of the great things that the RealAge formula has taught us is this: Make changes, see the rewards. You can figure out your RealAge with a free test at – www.realage.com.
Of course, the reason why ageing is so intimidating isn’t because it appears to sneak up on you like a first-rate mugger. In reality, ageing is more like a savvy bank robber who’s spent months casing the joint. Why the discrepancy? Because there are huge delays between the cause of the problem and the effects you actually see in your life. And that means you have to start building defences in your thirties, forties and fifties against attacks that may not occur until your sixties, seventies and eighties.
Fortunately, science has finally figured out most of the spectacular biological processes that control ageing. And by learning about such things as mitochondria, telomeres, sirtuin, nitric oxide and the vagus nerve – which you will do in this book – you’ll appreciate how to apply these remarkable discoveries to your own life. As we take you inside your own body, you’ll learn about the shoelacelike chromosome that affects memory loss. You’ll discover the body’s cellular energy factories that play a role in damaging and preserving your arteries (and you thought it was all due to the buttered biscuits). You’ll even figure out whether you’re a good candidate for hormone therapy as you age and understand how your third eye controls your sleeping pattern (yes, we said third). Ultimately, by understanding the science behind your body, you’ll slow your rate of ageing – to live long and strong. While science holds the keys, only you have the power to unlock your potential longevity.
After all, ageing may be inevitable, but the rate of ageing is certainly not.
Your Body, Your City
Perhaps the best way to explain the dynamics of ageing is to take a look at another complex system that’s subjected to the same forces as your body: a city. Some cities remain beautiful and elegant in their old age (think of old but elegant European cities like London), while others that may not even be so old look worn down, beat up and in need of an urban ICU. Every city experiences the ups and downs of ageing; how well the city managers and residents adapt largely determines whether the city will age gracefully or end up on the wrong side of spray paint, riots and urban decay (see Figure Intro 1).
Now, every city has its own genetic code, just as you have yours. For a city, genes are geography – whether it’s built on a river, or whether it’s located in a hot or cold climate, or whether it lies directly in a prevalent hurricane path. The city’s geography can’t inherently change. But the city can adapt to that environment, with earthquake-proof construction, underground tunnels for walking in winter-time, or a ferry system for commuting. The adaptation the city makes to survive and to thrive is what’s crucial to its vitality. The same goes for YOU.
Just because you’ve been dealt a genetic hand that predisposes you to heart disease or diabetes or needing trousers as large as a parachute doesn’t mean that you can’t mitigate the effects of those genes. One of the major things we’ll teach you is that while you can’t change your genes, you can change whether they are turned on or off, or how you express them. Not every aggressive detrimental gene needs to be turned on, and not all of your sleepy protective genes have to remain dormant. Just like a city, you can compensate elegantly if you understand your options. After all, Rome is called the eternal city.
While some cities can deteriorate if they’re not managed well, others can be maintained and revitalized if the right resources and investments are made available. That’s the way you, too, can live gracefully and passionately with a fundamentally older infrastructure. Throughout the book, you’ll learn many ways to manage your personal metropolis. You’ll see that your immune system is your body’s police force. Your arteries are like roads that can be clogged, blocked or worn down by