YOU: Staying Young

Life's a race to the finish and how you get there is up to you. According to Dr. Michael Roizen and Dr. Mehmet Oz, authors of YOU: Staying Young, The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty, you can live a longer and healthier life if you think of maintaining your body in the same way as you maintain your car. Getting the car in for service is second nature, and for most, changing the car's oil is automatic every 3000 miles. The same idea applies to one's body: devote the same care and energy to one's body as to one's car in order to extend the body's full use warranty.

Five ideas gleamed from YOU: Staying Young that YOU, reading this, need to know and follow starting now.

1. Women age more slowly than men because the female pineal gland, located in the female brain, is larger than the male pineal gland, despite the fact that the male brain as a whole is larger. Summary: When a man and woman are the same age, the man is aging faster.

2. Omega-3 fats relax the arteries and "quell inflammation," while trans fats cause arteries to spasm and increase arterial inflammation. Summary: take Omega-3 capsules to reduce artery aging or eat salmon.

3. Eating fewer calories turns on a magic molecule, sirtuin, that helps neutralize aging. According to Roizen and Oz, one way to activate sirtuin is by drinking red wine, which contains the chemical resveratrol. "Muscadine grapes, growing in the southeast United States, have the highest level of resveratrol -- several times more then wine." Summary: drink more red wine to reverse aging or eat muscadine grapes.

4. Women should take hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for ten years. Summary: Take HRT to stay young and slow down the aging process.

5. Aging is a process that is reversible. According to Roizen and Oz, "if you perform a good habit for three years, the effect on your body is as if you've done it your entire life." If that isn't enough to make one start putting life in reverse, "within three months of changing a behavior, you can start to measure a difference in your life expectancy." Summary: reverse aging starting today.

This is not about making another new year's resolution to live longer, eat less, exercise more, yada-yada-yada; if that's all it took, grave-diggers would be out of work. And since it ends the same for all of us, The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty gives factoids and hints that will not only enhance life but extend life. But does it work? A quick look at the authors will tell you it does. A few years ago I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Roizen on a project over a period of a few months; he was charming, humorous and ageless. His Realage book was a huge sensation and he was tickled. He laughed alot, he obviously flossed. His clear wrinkle-free skin looked radiant. He was ageless. Apparently he read the book -- or wrote it.
Photo attribution: somewhatfrank