american academy anti aging medicine

As the human lifespan lengthens, we have to think of new ways of aging. We will start to experience new things in our lives, and we will want to start to confide in pros if we feel our relationships with our partners, families and friends start to have barriers. We will want to continue to learn and to develop new interests. We don’t ever want to forget that the heart is also the symbol of what makes life worthwhile, in addition to keeping us going.

The decisions you will make today, and whatever you do this year will possibly halt or even reverse many common signs of aging. By this time next year you have the chance to be in great shape, and have more energy than you did 10 years ago, plus having fewer aches and pains than now. But you need to be aware of what those decisions should be.

We realize now, that there are actually 3 different ages:

Chronological age – The total number of your birthdays.

Biological age – What is the actual age of your body systems? Is your heart that of a young person? Or is stiff and laboring like someone with a lot more birthdays than you? How about your brain? Is it swift and able to rebound quickly? How is your memory? Or is your brain slower than someone half again your years? There numerous things you can possibly do that will help make a big difference biologically. These are the keys to the ‘Ageless Aging’ that you have probably heard of.

Psychological age – this is the actual age that you feel you have reached? Some people feel like 70 when they’re only 50, while others in their 80’s act and feel like they’re still in their 60’s There are lots of things a person can do to feel years younger than they are. Research now shows that feeling better about your lot in life not only can affect your biological age, but even affects your chronological age.

Something new is now beginning to take place in the world of anti-aging. Doctors, who once considered naturopaths, osteopaths and others who first populated modern anti-aging as “loony”, and whom they often called carnival barkers, are fast becoming anti-aging practitioners and offering patients treatments such as human growth hormone, testosterone, special diet and exercise regimens, antioxidants and hundreds of other supplements, thus hinting at the possibility of the “fountain of youth”, so to speak.

One emergency room physician based in Northern California follows the movement closely by frequently attending anti-aging meetings and talking to friends in the field. He has also taken advantage of some of the techniques himself. He exercises five days a week, follows a strict low-fat diet that with fruits, vegetables and wild salmon but no white flour or red meat. He also uses supplements ranging from thiamin and biotin to DHEA, DMAE, colostrums, argentine, carnitine and omega-3 fatty acids — these amount to over 50 pills daily, and he is 64 but looks to be in his 50’s

In 1994, the annual Las Vegas meeting of the brand new American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine was held in a small hotel in Vegas. It took place in a tent-like structure on the pool patio. In Dec, 2008, at the 15th annual meeting of said organization, roughly 2,000 people, including business owners, anti-aging promoters and hundreds of doctors — from several fields of medicine — filled a huge meeting space inside the Venetian.

There are now patients from around the country buying in. A 57-year-old Charleston, S.C., real estate agent saw an anti-aging doctor for the first in December when she sought help for joint pain, insomnia and lack of energy. She said that she knew something was going on but testing she had received did not show anything. She knew she had symptoms, but doctors kept telling her nothing was wrong but she knew different.

Patients generally see their anti-aging doctors a lot more often than the regular doctors. The reason is, in addition to checking on weight and body fat and general health; the docs are constantly monitoring a large range of sometimes esoteric health indicators with a battery of medical tests, including urinalysis and blood work. Checking levels of everything from testosterone and estrogen to follicle stimulating hormone and a natural steroid known as DHEA. With the results of all these tests, the doctors may then recommend drugs, hormones, supplements and special diets and fitness regimens — and then see the patient again in several weeks or months for follow up.

“I am as mainstream as you can get. I am 59 years old, board certified in ob-gyn, as was my father. If you had come to me five, six years ago and talked about anti-aging, I would have said, ‘Hogwash!’” says Dr. Andrew Jurow, an ob-gyn in Burlingame, Calif, says he is now a devotee also.

Behind the glossy images in magazines, and on television, there lies dangerous anti-aging secrets.