The Life Plan (4 page)

Fewer premature deaths in highly productive stages of life

Fewer disabilities and pain associated with chronic diseases

More independence and positive life quality

The time to plan and act is now. Remember, we don’t die of old age. We die because we allow ourselves to get old. I know that making behavioral changes can be challenging for many reasons, including one I often hear about from patients: money. But the fact is it takes far less to prevent disease than it does to treat it. A study published in
Diabetes Care
, which focused on the costs of a health-promoting diet, indicated that “adopting a diet that more closely follows nutrition recommendations will not increase diet costs.” Americans complain about rising prices, but actually we tend to have one of the lowest-priced food supplies globally—and spend the lowest proportion of disposable income on food.

Fortunately, there is a new medical specialty that deals specifically and exclusively with all of these issues—age management medicine (AMM). Physicians like me who follow this type of medical practice are dedicated to the science of healthy aging. AMM emphasizes the enhancement of health over the treatment of illness, focusing on disease prevention, wellness, and quality of life. These strategies include the intelligent promotion of healthy key hormone levels combined with individualized exercise and nutritional programs specifically designed to lower body fat, increase muscle tissue and strength, reduce risk factors for illness, improve overall cardiovascular fitness, and find and treat asymptomatic vascular disease. I have been practicing age management medicine since I joined Cenegenics in January 2004, and have never looked back. That’s because as both a doctor and a patient, I know that my patients and I feel better than we ever have before.

I’ve learned through my own experience that we must all change our thinking about aging. Older does not mean sicker. The majority of men already possess a genetic makeup that will allow us to live well beyond age 85. The key is to make the best of the genes we have so we can live better, for longer. By incorporating AMM practices into our daily lives we can reverse illness and reduce the time we are sick. We can’t stop the aging process, but we can definitely manage it. We can avoid premature disability and death. After all, what are the benefits of living longer if we end up in a nursing home, left with a body or brain that doesn’t work?

That’s why I’m so very glad you’ve decided to join me and follow my Life Plan. This book is meant to steer you toward making significant changes to your current behavioral and medical choices. My program is based on the latest science-based protocols that work together with your current lifestyle, making a series of small yet important changes that you can implement right now. As you continue on the program, you will step into new levels of diet and nutrition, as well as new levels of exercise. In many cases, these lifestyle changes will correct any hormone deficiencies you might have by helping you make more of your own hormones. The speed with which you step into this program is entirely up to you, but as you can imagine, the faster you can get to the highest levels of fitness and nutrition, the better the results you’ll achieve.

You may have heard of the medical phrase “signs and symptoms.” While these words sound innocuous, they really are vital signals to watch for. Signs are literally aspects of your health that your doctor can either see with his or her own eyes or pick up with a diagnostic test. Symptoms are negative experiences that cannot be seen or detected except on your own. Both are critically important to your overall health, because they are a warning of premature aging, illness, and potentially early death.

The following quiz will help you determine if you are currently experiencing either signs or symptoms of aging. Circle T for each true response, and F if this issue never occurs. It doesn’t matter what your “score” is at the end of the quiz, because the fix is the same. Even if you have only one “true” response, you may be experiencing a hidden, and often seemingly unrelated illness. For example, erectile dysfunction not only affects your sex life, but could be an early symptom of heart disease. The sooner you can get on the Life Plan and address these issues, the more likely it will be that you can—and should—reverse the damage they have caused.

All of these signs and symptoms should be discussed with your doctor before you begin the program. You’ll learn in Chapter 14 exactly how to have this conversation and what your doctor should be doing for you to address these and other health issues.

SIGNS OF AGING

I have gained weight around my midsection (belly fat).

T/F

I have been told that I have bone loss/osteoporosis.

T/F

I have been told that I have diabetes and/or insulin resistance.

T/F

I’m not as strong as I used to be.

T/F

I’m not as muscular as I used to be.

T/F

I have gained 10 pounds or more over the past year.

T/F

I have been told that I have a high LDL cholesterol score.

T/F

My skin is beginning to sag.

T/F

I have noticed reduced flexibility or increased stiffness in my joints.

T/F

I have trouble concentrating, slow recall, and/or foggy thinking.

T/F

I often feel blue or depressed.

T/F

I feel lethargic midmorning or midafternoon.

T/F

I often experience an overall feeling of fatigue.

T/F

I wake up frequently during the night and experience poor sleep.

T/F

I am not accomplishing as much as I used to at work.

T/F

I have difficulty with sexual arousal, low libido, less intense orgasm, or poor erections.

T/F

I am prone to irritability/emotional swings/anxiety.

T/F

I lack stamina.

T/F

I have slow recovery time after exercise.

T/F

I train as hard as I used to, but don’t get the same results.

T/F

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and more than one in three American men currently have cardiovascular disease. Every 25 seconds an American will have a heart attack; every 40 seconds someone has a stroke; and every minute one of these men will die. The average age for a man to experience his first heart attack is 64.

Atherosclerosis is the cause of blood vessel disease that leads to heart attacks and strokes. It refers to the plaque that grows in the walls of blood vessels. Inflammation is intrinsically connected to all phases of cardiovascular disease. In fact, atherosclerosis can begin in childhood and later lead to a damaged endothelium (the thin, one-cell layer lining the interior of your vascular tree) ultimately creating plaque buildup.

Plaque is not a normal result of aging, and if you have any plaque, you have disease that needs to be aggressively treated. More than 90 percent of heart attack events occur in men with significantly diseased blood vessels at arterial sites undetectable with conventional diagnostics, such as stress testing. Stress tests pick up vascular disease that blocks the lumen of the arteries that feed your heart. It takes at least a 70 percent blockage in one of your coronary arteries to fail a stress test. Eighty-six percent of heart attacks occur with less than a 70 percent blockage. Tim Russert, the former
Meet the Press
host and NBC Washington bureau chief, is a prime example. He passed his stress test and died two months later of a heart attack caused by cholesterol plaque in the wall of one of his coronary arteries that ruptured into the lumen. He was 58 years old. This happens often because as much as 99 percent of all plaque in the artery is in the wall of the blood vessel and does not block the flow of blood.

Yet most physicians base their therapies for heart attack and stroke prevention on traditional risk-factor identification: monitoring blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking, and diabetes. But improving or eliminating risk factors alone fails to identify many men who have hidden disease. These “surprise” heart attacks and strokes can also be prevented with optimized healthcare, which is a paradigm shift away from the current status quo or standard of care, which frequently misses critical markers that could save your life. But to achieve this optimized care, you and your physician must take the right steps. The bottom line is that you need to identify blood vessel disease as early as possible in order to get the right treatment that will stop its progression.

In order to do this, make sure that your physician looks for early vascular disease and, if discovered, closely monitors your treatment with a comprehensive program that is tailored specifically for you. I have listed in Chapter 14 the testing that I believe is necessary to diagnose subclinical atherosclerosis and avoid a heart attack or stroke. For example, Carotid IntimaMedia Thickness testing (CIMT) is now considered one of the best, least expensive tests to detect subclinical atherosclerosis, which allows your physician to take the right steps to halt its progression or even reverse it.

Most heart attacks and strokes occur when a blood clot forms in an inflamed artery, cutting off the blood supply to the affected heart or brain tissue. Blood clots occur when soft plaque in the wall of the artery ruptures or erodes through the lining (endothelium) of the blood vessel. There are several reliable tests for vascular inflammation that causes plaque rupture or erosion. These nontraditional blood tests are beneficial for determining whether you have blood vessel disease and how far it has progressed. They can predict your risk of a heart attack or stroke and can also be used as markers of treatment success.

Another important cause of heart attacks and strokes that many men overlook is periodontal disease, a chronic infection of the gums. At least 75 percent of men have periodontal disease. Periodontal disease can increase the risk of coronary artery disease in men less than 50 years old by 72 percent. If you have severe periodontal disease you are 3.8 times more likely to have a heart attack and twice as likely to have a stroke. Your dentist can play a major role in keeping you from having a heart attack and stroke: Be sure to see him/her often.

I believe, and the medical literature supports me, that the better care your heart gets—including the right exercise, nutrition, nutraceuticals, and healthy hormone levels—the easier it is to reduce your risk of heart disease and prevent other age-related illnesses, including diabetes, Alzheimer’s, cancer, erectile dysfunction, arthritis, and other inflammatory diseases. The reactionary, traditional approach to healthcare today avoids preventive measures and moves us near the archway of death, then uses highly invasive, highly expensive treatments to pull us back, making us feel “grateful” while heart centers and hospitals reap the fiscal profits.