Anti Aging News

I have been having a look around the neighborhood so to speak. It seems that anti aging encompasses quite a variety of ideas. So I thought I ought to clarify what anti aging means to me and what antiagingupdates.com is about.

For some anti aging means to live forever, to become immortal. The aim for this group is to discover how to avoid death completely because to be the annihilated is not something anyone can easily accept. It isn’t easy I agree but I think these people are wasting the few years they do have by seeking eternal youth. It reminds me of the alchemists who spent their time searching for a means of turning base metal into gold. I would rather look to the possible.

For others anti aging means to hold off the aging process and to disguise the appearance of age for as long as possible. This means to pay attention to the body and to take steps to repair it with whatever means one can. There are operations to lift the face, the buttocks and the breasts. There are dermal fillers that can be injected to fill out sagging facial structures and there are various skin care products some better than others but all of which do less than we hoped. Nevertheless there is value here and I use  skin care products to keep me looking my best too. None of this prevents aging. We may hold back the appearance of aging for a while but we are well aware that in places that others do not see the aging process continues.

Other folk believe that you can prevent aging by taking supplements. By paying close attention to research findings it is thought to be possible to take supplements that mend your body enough to prevent aging or the diseases of aging. This seems to me to be rather unlikely. We just don’t know enough yet to pick out the odd vitamin or phytochemical and be certain it holds the answer to prolonging life and vitality.

We don’t even know how to do this with rats. In one study one group of rats were fed every known element a rat needs for health. Another group were fed normal rat chow. At the end of several months the rats fed their ‘ideal’ diet were sick and many had died. The rats fed ordinary rat chow were doing well.

It is said that you are forgotten entirely around 50 years and at most 95 years after your death. The timing depends on whether or not you have a living relative that knew you.  If you have a grandchild that was old enough to remember you that child must have been at least 5 years old when you died. If that child lives to be 100 then you may be remembered, albeit not well, for a maximum of 95 years after your death. After that you are completely forgotten.  Isn’t that a very shocking fact?

If you are religious the ending  of this life might not seem so bad. You understand its meaning and accept it. Perhaps it offers you another better life after this one. Whatever a person of faith believes will happen when they die they at least have the promise that there is meaning  to life, that their brief time here was for a purpose. For the rest of us, and I include myself, there is no such comfort. We simply understand that each day you get older you are losing a little of yourself and that this will continue until your life ends. No wonder then that people are driven to look for immortality.

As you get older you notice that time seems to speed up. The ‘you’ who was 30 and giving no thought to the morrow is suddenly 60 and aging fast. You begin to notice that even slightly younger people do not react to you in the same way as they did when you were in your fifties. They congratulate you on things that you do that didn’t raise an eyebrow a few years earlier. If you are adept with the internet for example they look surprised and may even congratulate you .  That is just how they see you and there is really nothing you can do about it.

It isn’t any use to say that you only feel 25, they simply don’t believe you, just as I didn’t believe it when elderly folk would say such things to me a few years back. One wants to explain that although you are now rather barrel shaped, have gray hair that is not as thick and shiny as it used to be and you can’t run much anymore, you are really no different than they are. You are not sweet and you refuse to be patronized thanks very much. OK they think, you are simply a grumpy old thing. You see the dilemma?

When I began this anti aging web site I was really thinking more about raising awareness of ageism and trying to fight it as much as preventing aging itself.  I wasn’t really thinking too much about looking younger but of course I would like to look as young as I can if only so I don’t get talked down to.  I don’t think it is possible to live forever and even if it were desirable, which it isn’t, as it would be a disaster for the planet and all the other creatures we share it with.

It may be possible to live quite a lot longer and to remain fit and healthy if we stop eating animals and animal proteins. This is what ‘The China Study‘  found and also Dr. Esseltyn in his book   ‘Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease’ . Of all the ways people have chosen to try and slow down the aging process research points to eating a plant based diet and taking moderate daily exercise as the  most important things one can do.