I have finally come to the conclusion that a good reliable set of bowels is worth more to a man than any quantity of brains.

--Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818-85), American humorist

The intestines figure prominently in the Renewal process. They're responsible for extracting nutrients from the foods you eat and moving those nutrients into your bloodstream. To carry out this all-important task as efficiently as possible, the intestines rely on multitudes of beneficial bacteria.

About 400 species of these "good bugs" inhabit the intestines. Their total population is somewhere in the quadrillions--100 times the number of cells in your body. Remarkably, these microorganisms peacefully coexist in a carefully balanced internal ecosystem. As long as they flourish, they prevent pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria and fungi from colonizing. In this way, beneficial bacteria help keep you healthy.

If the delicate intestinal environment is somehow disrupted, pathogenic bacteria, parasites, and fungi--unsavory critters with names like clostridia, salmonella, staphylococcus, Blastocystis hominis, and Candida albicans--waste no time in taking advantage of the situation. They move in, multiply, and overrun the beneficial bacteria.

Once pathogenic bacteria and fungi make themselves at home, they can be very difficult to roust. So avoid rolling out the welcome mat in the first place. How? By taking acidophilus supplements. These supplements, which I sometimes refer to as probiotics (pro meaning "supporting" and biotic meaning "life"), contain a variety of beneficial microorganisms. They increase the population of friendly flora in your intestines and thus maintain a Renewal-supporting environment.

Microbes with a Mission

The good bugs don't just float around in your gut. Instead, they cling to the mucous membrane lining of your intestines. Actually, this lining covers your entire gastrointestinal tract. If it were spread out flat, its surface area would exceed that of two tennis courts.

The intestinal lining's carpetlike surface is suffused with nutrients, as if it were fertile soil. It provides an abundance of food and a warm, nurturing environment in which beneficial bacteria can thrive. Ecologically balanced with each other and with you, the bacteria form a protective coating for the lining.

The symbiotic relationship between the bacteria and the intestinal lining ultimately benefits Renewal as well. As I mentioned earlier, the friendly flora facilitate the digestion of food and the absorption of nutrients. But that's not all.

Beneficial bacteria support the synthesis of certain vitamins, including biotin, folic acid, niacin, pantothenic acid, riboflavin, thiamin,

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12|502>, and vitamin K. The bacteria also break down dietary proteins into amino acids, which are then reconfigured into "new" proteins that the body can use. Bacteria even keep a lid on the amount of toxic material in your intestines, making sure that poisons get flushed out of your system (via the stool) rather than absorbed into your bloodstream.

Just as important, beneficial bacteria promote immune health. They stimulate activity in the thymus (the immune system's master gland) and spleen (another key immune system organ). They prompt your body to manufacture natural antibodies. Certain acidophilus strains even defend against the formation of tumors and promote production of interferon, a hormone that protects against cancer.

Nasty Neighbors

As expansive as the intestinal lining is, it provides only so much real estate for microorganisms. The objective, then, is to make sure the good bugs occupy all of the available properties. Because once they start moving out--which can happen for a variety of reasons, as I explain a bit later--the bad bugs settle into the vacated space. And believe me, they can make life miserable.

Fortifying themselves with the nutrients intended for the beneficial bacteria, pathogenic bacteria and fungi quickly seize control of as much intestinal territory as they can. Initially, they may produce only mild symptoms such as gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, and cramps. But as they continue their rampage, they create and release an unsavory stew of toxins: amides, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, indole, methane, methylated amines, and phenol mercaptans. These chemicals can irritate the intestines' mucous membrane lining, causing or aggravating abdominal symptoms. An inflamed lining allows large, incompletely digested food molecules (called macromolecules) to pass through the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream, where they are targeted by immune cells as invaders. The resulting allergic reaction can cause symptoms ranging from "just not feeling right" to headaches, arthritis-like pain, fatigue, depression, and confusion.

But wayward macromolecules aren't the only problem to arise from the proliferation of unfriendly flora. The chemicals that these bad bugs produce can escape from the intestines, as toxin-laden liquid gets absorbed from fecal matter through the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream. Once there, these chemicals increase internal free radical load and damage cells. They must also be reprocessed by the liver and kidneys, thus increasing the workload of these detoxifying organs. The resulting backlog blocks cellular Renewal and ultimately accelerates the aging process.

Pathogenic bacteria and fungi also manufacture enzymes that convert harmless compounds into chemical carcinogens. These enzymes, which go by names such as nitroreductase, azoreductase, and beta-glucuronidase, can pass through the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream. There, they have the freedom to travel anywhere in the body, potentially raising your risk of cancer in the process.

A Vanishing Act

Clearly, unfriendly flora can cause all sorts of trouble within your body. But remember, they're opportunists: They run amok only when the friendly types are depleted.

So what drives the good bugs out of your intestines? At the top of the list of offenders is a diet that includes animal-derived foods (meats, poultry, fish, dairy products, and eggs), processed or preserved foods, sugar, or alcohol. Any of these offenders increase your exposure to free radicals and toxins, creating a hostile internal environment in which beneficial bacteria struggle to survive.

Then there are antibiotics, which can decimate much of your intestinal population of beneficial bacteria. With the good bugs gone, the intestines become especially vulnerable to bad bugs such as staphylococcus and C. albicans (the latter of which is more commonly known as yeast). Other prescription drugs--namely, oral contraceptives and immunosuppressants (such as steroids)--have similar adverse effects on the intestinal ecosystem.

Finding Balance

Regular supplementation with acidophilus repopulates your intestinal tract with benevolent bugs. These microorganisms restore and maintain balance within your internal ecosystem while at the same time displacing noxious bacteria and fungi. They also increase the acidity of the intestinal environment, which good bugs love (acidophilus literally means "love of acid") and bad bugs hate.

By making the intestines less hospitable to malevolent microorganisms, acidophilus supplements have another benefit: They reduce the amounts of toxic chemicals floating around your system. (Pathogenic bacteria and fungi, you'll recall, produce their own toxins.) At a local level, this helps minimize your risk of colon cancer. On a larger scale, it protects your entire body and improves overall health.

Acidophilus supplements are widely available in health food stores as well as drugstores. Indeed, choosing from among the numerous "something-dophilus" products that line store shelves may seem like a daunting task. Read their labels, and you'll discover a variety of good bugs--not just Lactobacillus acidophilus but also Bifidobacterium bifidum, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus faecium, and others. Some products may contain fructo-oligosaccharides, sugars that nourish beneficial bacteria to make them colonize faster. All of these "ingredients" are acceptable, and any combination of them works well.

Keep in mind that acidophilus supplements contain living organisms, so freshness is critical. Purchase a product well before its expiration date--in fact, make sure it has an expiration date. Once you open the supplements, keep them refrigerated. And toss them out once they're more than six months old. At that point, they're dead.

As for dosage, it varies from one product to another. Your best bet is to follow the instructions on the label.

A final bit of advice: If your doctor puts you on antibiotics, which at times is absolutely necessary, make sure you double each dose of acidophilus. Take the supplements a couple of hours before or after the antibiotics so the microorganisms aren't destroyed by the medication.

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There's one more element of the Anti-Aging Supplement Program that we need to discuss: the anti-aging hormones. Strictly speaking, they're not nutritional supplements, but they're every bit as important to Renewal. The next section profiles all of the anti-aging hormones, so you can decide which are right for you.