Tag: aging

Landmark Results Achieved in Aging and Chronic Disease: Danish Group Extends Disease-free Life by 8 Years

Jul 11, 2019• 3

By WILLIAM H. BESTERMANN JR., MD

New Scientific Breakthroughs Can Provide a Longer Healthier Life

Twenty-one years of follow-up comparing usual care with a protocol-driven team-based intervention in diabetes proved that healthy life in humans can be prolonged by 8 years. These results were achieved at a lower per patient per year cost. Aging researchers have been confident that we will soon be able to prolong healthy life. This landmark study shows this ambitious goal can be achieved now with lifestyle intervention and a few highly effective proven medications. These medications interfere with the core molecular biology that causes chronic disease and aging. These same medications will likely produce similar results in patients with congestive heart failure, chronic kidney disease, arterial disease, history of heart attack, hypertension, and angina. Simple medical interventions can extend healthy lifespan today.

Better Chronic Disease Management Can Improve Health and Lower Costs

90% of health care costs come from chronic diseases and aging which are both related. The same biochemistry that causes aging causes chronic disease. Eating processed food, gaining weight, smoking cigarettes, and sitting on the couch accelerate aging and chronic condition development. Those activities switch on genes that should be quiet. Eating real food, avoiding cigarettes, activity, lisinopril, losartan, atorvastatin, metformin, (and spironolactone) are now proven to extend healthy life by 8 years in patients who are at high risk of health catastrophes and early death! These medications all cost $4 a month except for atorvastatin which is $9 a month. The benefits continue even when best practice treatment stops probably because these treatments block signaling from dangerous genes that are inappropriately and persistently turned on.

Progress Will Require Extensive Health System Reengineering

Having better health and reducing health care costs can happen today. Surprisingly, the biggest barrier to progress is our current health care system. It is arranged around catastrophes, organ systems, and hospitals. These concepts are 100 years old. Chronic disease begins decades before the catastrophe, and it is related to aging. Age is the greatest risk factor for a heart attack. The same biochemistry that causes accelerated aging also causes heart attack and strokes. It makes little sense to see a cardiologist for a heart attack and a neurologist for a stroke. They are caused by the same molecular biology. The leading health care systems are beginning to recognize that. The interventions that slow aging and chronic diseases development impact every cell in the body. Every young person who is overweight or smokes has activated genes that make accelerated aging and chronic disease more likely. If these genes are switched on prior to having children, that risk is passed on to the next two generations.

Primary care teams organized to address chronic conditions and more rapid aging will provide lifestyle advice and medication that interfere directly with the biology that is causing the problem. The further upstream these individuals are when identified, the easier it is to slow aging and delay chronic disease onset. The path to better health at lower cost lies in the outpatient setting with primary care teams that are well-versed in molecular biology.

53 Is the New 38

Dec 3, 2014• 3

MIKE TURPIN

Middle Age is where your broad mind and your narrow waist begin to change places.” – John Crossman

I never really took a regular medication for a condition before I was in my forties. My mother did not believe in pills. She was one part Christian Scientist and two parts Inuit Darwinist subscribing to the notion that sick children, like old people, should be just set outside the igloo at night and if they were still alive in the morning, they were allowed to rejoin the family. Illness and chronic conditions were things that plagued other people, like old man Norton who lived across the street. At 85, he suffered from heart failure and diabetes and it seemed like every other week they were lopping off one of his appendages as a sort of burnt offering to his disease. It was a preview of a movie I hoped to never see.

As a kid, you averted your eyes from the vagaries of aging, not so much out of denial but out of some misguided sense that old age only happened to other people. Deep down, you knew it would be waiting for you, like that German Shepherd that sometimes chased you on your bike. On sunny afternoons, I occasionally glimpsed Mr. Norton and he would wave to me from his wheel chair – all two arms, one foot and a half leg. It freaked me out and I made a pact that I would never succumb to old age.

Who Will Solve Healthcare For Our Parents And Grandparents? Probably Not Google.

Sep 25, 2013• 13

By Leslie Kernisan, MD

I assume by now that you’ve heard the news: Google wants to tackle aging. Specifically, they announced this week the launch of Calico, “a new company that will focus on health and well-being, in particular the challenge of aging and associated diseases.”

Because, says Larry Page, with some “moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives.”

“Can Google Solve DEATH?” shrieks a TIME cover.

Google’s goal, it seems is to find ways to extend human lifespan and essentially stave off aging.

Coincidentally, on the same day Physician’s First Watch directed me towards this NEJM editorial, announcing that NEJM and the Harvard Business Review are teaming up on a project on Leading Health Care Innovation.

Here is the paragraph that particularly caught my eye:

“The health care community and the business community today share a fundamental interest in finding ways to achieve higher value in health care. The ultimate objective for both communities is to keep people healthy, prevent the chronic illnesses that consume a large fraction of our health care dollars, use medical interventions appropriately and only when needed, and create an economically sustainable approach to the delivery of health care. While we want to foster innovation and novel therapies against disease, we also recognize that, whenever possible, prevention of disease before it is established is the better solution.” [Emphasis mine.]

And therein lies the rub. Whether it’s Google or a high-powered partnership between NEJM & HBR, everyone is enamored of prevention and innovative cures.

Let’s prevent those pesky chronic diseases! Let’s cure aging!

Ah, spare me.

Sending Some Love to Our Bodies

Apr 20, 2012• 7

By Linnea Duff

When first diagnosed with cancer, I felt as if my body had not only let me down, but actually turned on me. Some of my own DNA had gone rogue, grabbed some prime real estate in my lungs, and set up headquarters. Even when forcibly evicted, the rebel cells kept returning. Their numbers grew, and soon recruits were colonizing new neighborhoods.

Attempting to slow the spread of cancer has required unyielding vigilance. Emotionally and spiritually, I believe this has resulted in an unforeseen benefit; a chance for personal growth.

Physically, it has taken quite a toll. My body has been a battleground and I am scarred inside and out. This could potentially be distressing, as we live in a beauty and youth oriented society where great measures are taken to avoid the imperfections associated with aging and disease.

I am not afraid of getting old. I hope to hell I do. And I made peace with myself some time ago. Not only is all forgiven (the whole cancer thing), I have an abiding affection for this body of mine. We’ve been through a lot together, and somehow, some way, we both just keep on going.

Must be love.

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