Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Did you know that green tea has been shown to help promote healthspan and lifespan? This is especially evident in regions called blue zones, where people tend to live longer than average. Learn about the powerful benefits of green tea now.
As we age, we begin to lose our muscle. This can impact our strength, posture and more. Fortunately, there is a powerful nutrient called fish oil that can help protect and promote muscle health.
Slowing down the aging process doesn’t mean stopping it completely (we can’t get everything we want!). But how we age depends on numerous factors. What if we told you there were ways you could slow down the aging process in order to age optimally? Here’s what you need to know.
You can lather on as many creams and serums as you want – and they may help your skin to look and feel young and radiant – but the truth is, aging is happening in your cells, tissues and organs.
The term ‘healthy aging’ is meant to define how you optimize how healthy you live by protecting yourself from damaging your body and avoiding common diseases associated with aging.
As you age, the need to keep up with the constant changes in your body can prove difficult. Damage in your cells caused by free radicals can lead to accelerated aging and disease. The natural aging process gives way to deficiencies as your body becomes less able to process many vitamins and nutrients. For this reason, it is important to reevaluate your needs as you age.
Protecting Against Free Radicals
Antioxidants prevent free radical-induced tissue damage by preventing the formation of radicals by scavenging them, or by promoting their decomposition. “A free radical damages our cells by attacking the cell membrane, destroying the enzymes and disrupting proteins from being made, along with creating waste products,” according to Director of Nutrition, Amanda Williams, MPH, MD.
High Intensity Workouts
When Mayo Clinic researchers studied a group of sedentary people who engaged in weight training, interval training, or cardio exercise several times a week, they found that while all of the participants had increased their fitness levels and improved blood sugar regulation, only the interval training group showed an increase in the number and health of their mitochondria. HIIT, or high intensity interval training, has been shown to be one of the leading fitness-related contributors to a healthy heart, muscle mass, bone density and energy production.
Did you know that eating a diet high in sugar can actually break down your skin’s collagen, leading to dull, wrinkled skin and loss of elasticity? When you consume sugar, it reacts with proteins in your blood that can cause further damage to important proteins like collagen and elastin. It can also lead to inflammation. Eliminate refined sugars from your diet.
You’ve heard about antioxidants and we’ve told you about free radicals. but what if there was a powerful antioxidants that could actually play a role in detoxifying your body from free radicals like air pollutants, heavy metals, and other toxins? Glutathione is a peptide made naturally in your body and found in almost all cells. Researchers all this peptide ‘the most powerful antioxidant’, but glutathione levels decline as we age, making us more vulnerable to oxidative stress and free radicals that can damage the body.†
Your body releasing the hormones cortisol and adrenaline to react to emotional and physical stress is normal. It’s why our bodies are able to handle stresses in small amounts. But when you are chronically stressed, the elevated levels of cortisol can generate free radicals. Chronic stress has also been shown to contribute to inflammation and metabolic syndrome.
As you age, the need to keep up with the constant changes in your body can prove difficult. But the good news is there are some lifestyle changes you can make in order to keep your body healthy and strong.
Photo by Aleksandar Popovski on Unsplash September is National Healthy Aging Month! Don’t wait to start a New Year’s resolution; it’s time to get started on adding some healthy practices to your lifestyle! Carolyn Worthington, editor-in-chief of Healthy Aging® Magazine and executive director of Health …
Photo by Jenn Kosar on Unsplash Mushrooms are not just a popular pizza topping or delicious addition to a meal. They have been used as food and sometimes as medicine for centuries, especially in Asian cultures. They are exploding onto the health and beauty market …
Resveratrol is a phytoalexin, a natural substance that is released by plants to protect them from fungus and other microbes, from extreme temperatures, and from excessive dampness or drought. Resveratrol is found in the skin of red grapes, red wine, and peanuts. As a supplement, Resveratrol is one of the first that drew a significant amount of attention from the scientific and medical communities throughout the world. As a matter of fact, it has been researched extensively for its many health benefits; to date, there are over 4,000 human studies with Resveratrol.
Resveratrol is an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory substance. By being small enough to penetrate almost any cell in the body, it is able to activate many latent genes that aid in our survival and potentially extend the life of our cells.
According to Amanda Williams, MPH, Director of Nutrition for InVite® Health, resveratrol has been shown to increase the activity of SIRT1 (a gene that has been identified as the possible cause of aging), published in the Journal of Science. Researchers at Harvard University led the efforts to prove the power of resveratrol in enhancing mitochondrial function and longevity. Lead researcher from Harvard, David Sinclair reported, “In the history of pharmaceuticals, there has never been a [a drug] that binds to a protein to make it run faster in the way that Resveratrol activates SIRT1.”
Read, “A Potent Antioxidant: Resveratrol’s Impact on Longevity” by Amanda Williams, MPH
As an antioxidant, it targets free radicals and limits the impact of oxidative stress on our cells. In a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers found a strong correlation between red wine consumption and cardio-protective effects. “Red wine consumption for 2 weeks resulted in a 20% reduction in the propensity of plasma to undergo lipid peroxidation. In parallel, red wine consumption reduced the propensity of the volunteers’ LDL to undergo lipid peroxidation (in response to copper ions) as determined by a 46%, 72%, and 54% decrease in the content of TBARS, lipid peroxides, and conjugated dienes in LDL, respectively, as well as by a substantial prolongation of the lag phase required for the initiation of LDL oxidation.”
Does this mean you should consume more red wine? Probably not. The amount of red wine one would have to consume in order to reap Resveratrol’s benefits is unattainable. But, according to Amanda Williams, a person taking 20mg of Resveratrol supplements may ingest the equivalent amount of Resveratrol found in roughly 40 glasses of red wine.[1] Cheers to that!
[1] https://www.invitehealth.com/Article-antioxidant-Reservatrol-Longevity.html