A light heart lives long.

--William Shakespeare

This is an exciting time to be alive--the dawning of a new era in medicine. Respected researchers are engaged in serious discussions about the prospects for living longer than ever thought possible. The disorders once viewed as inevitable consequences of "normal" aging--including cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, Type II (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes, stroke, autoimmune disorders, and osteoporosis--have now been shown to be preventable and, with early detection, even reversible. The challenge has become to either flat-out prevent these age-related degenerative diseases or to detect them, through aggressive testing, in those early stages when they can still be reversed by natural and nutritional therapies.

All the information I've presented in the previous pages is about being healthier now, not just living longer. Optimum health and longevity are inseparable. They are opposite sides of the same coin. Through Renewal, you can grow old--very old--and remain healthy and happy and vital until the end.

Armed with all of the information in this book, you are now ready to design your personal Anti-Aging Program. After that, in the following section, I'll show you how to monitor your program's effectiveness.

Winning the Battle Within

In chapters 2 and 3, I described in detail the lifelong battle raging within each of us: the free radicals versus the antioxidants. We are very fortunate. No other generation in human history has been granted access to the incredible molecular biological window through which we can view the hand-to-hand, molecule-to-molecule combat being waged in our cells between the friendly, protective antioxidant molecules and those belligerent free radicals, hell-bent on causing disease and destroying us. Never before has it been possible to make enlightened and systematic choices that shift the balance in this battle in our favor. Now we can.

By following the Renewal Anti-Aging Program, you are supporting your natural healing systems, preventing free radical oxidation, fortifying your organ and energy systems, and protecting your cells. You're enhancing Renewal and setting the stage for a longer, healthier life span.

The Anti-Aging Diet

You already know that the Anti-Aging Diet is a low-fat, vegan eating plan based on the New Four Food Groups: grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. You'll find a 14-day menu plan, more than 30 recipes, and meal ideas galore--all created to help you make the Anti-Aging Diet part of your lifestyle.

The quickest, simplest way to pack the maximum quantities of health-supporting, phytochemical-rich, antioxidant-bearing nutrients into your diet is to make juices, smoothies, soups, and salads. I recommend investing in a large blender--one with a motor that's powerful enough to shred--and using it every day to make fresh fruit and vegetable juices. This way of juicing preserves the phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables, most of which are heat-sensitive.

The phytochemicals in grains, legumes, and onions, garlic, squash, yams, potatoes, and other starchy vegetables are fairly heat-stable. Use these foods to make pots of simple, wholesome soups.

The Anti-Aging Supplement Program

For optimum health, even a fantastic diet requires supplementation. As you customize the Anti-Aging Supplement Program to meet your particular needs, keep in mind the basic premises of Renewal. First, you are protecting your cells from damage. Second, you are promoting cellular repair. Third, you are encouraging cellular regeneration.

Always start with the basics: the essential nutrients. Be sure your program includes all of these vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, and coenzyme Q₁₀. This can be accomplished by taking a high-quality multivitamin/mineral formula, a flaxseed oil/borage oil combination supplement, and a coenzyme Q₁₀ capsule. (The recommended doses are provided in chapter 23.) The essential nutrients are essential for a reason: Without them, your body can't perform the most fundamental operations of cellular Renewal.

Next, add the anti-aging hormones. If you are over age 40 and want to safely extend your life span, then tap into the astonishing harvest of health benefits provided by the superhormones dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and pregnenolone. Production of these hormones declines with age, while higher levels are closely linked to freedom from degenerative diseases and longer life spans. A reasonable starting dose for DHEA is 15 milligrams twice daily for women and 25 milligrams twice daily for men. For pregnenolone, 50 milligrams twice daily is a conservative starting dose for both men and women.

After a couple of months, you might want to test your DHEA and pregnenolone levels. This can be done using either saliva or serum. Optimum levels for both hormones are those of a 30-year-old. Though not absolutely essential, testing will give you feedback to help fine-tune your dose. Although a consultation with an alternative-minded physician might prove helpful, it is not necessary. Both hormones and tests are available without a prescription.

You also won't want to miss out on the anti-aging benefits of melatonin. You can purchase this anti-insomnia, antioxidant, anti-aging, stress-reducing superhormone at just about any pharmacy or health food store. Take melatonin only at bedtime--0.5 to 1 milligram if you sleep soundly, more if you need help with sleep.

If you are a woman and a candidate for hormone replacement therapy, consider taking natural estrogen and natural progesterone. This must be done in cooperation with your physician.

Women and men over 40 who are losing libido may want to consider testosterone replacement therapy. Patches or pills are available by prescription only. This hormone can safely revitalize your sex life.

Hypothyroidism is widespread. As much as 40 percent of the population may have it. Replacement therapy with natural thyroid hormone, when appropriate, can work miracles. You'll need the help of a nutritional medicine physician here.

Because we need them to protect us in our ongoing war against the degenerative diseases of aging, the anti-aging antioxidants, phytochemicals, and herbs will further improve your chances of reaching that goal of 120 years--or beyond. Each of these offers a unique spectrum of benefits--and they enhance each other's effectiveness. So consuming a wide variety is advisable.

Are your levels of antioxidants high enough to protect you against the free radicals in your body? Testing will answer this question. (The antioxidant profile and oxidative stress panel are described a bit later in the chapter.) This information is of more than academic interest. Assessing antioxidant levels and degree of free radical damage not only translates directly into rate of aging but also provides exactly the information you need to take corrective action.

Armed with the results of these tests, supplementation can be targeted to replace deficient nutrients, thus plugging the holes in the antioxidant protective armor. For antioxidants already at optimum levels, more needn't be taken. But if vitamins E or C or coenzyme Q₁₀ is low, you can supplement each to improve antioxidant protection, support Renewal, and slow aging.

fiber and acidophilus supplementation is optional. More than one-third of the U.S. population has intestinal parasites and/or an overgrowth of "bad bacterial bugs." These critters alter the milieu in your intestinal tract. If you have digestive symptoms such as gas, bloating, cramps, indigestion, constipation, or diarrhea, you probably need fiber and acidophilus.

The brain nutrients (phosphatidylserine, acetyl-L-carnitine, pregnenolone, and ginkgo) can be used to help slow down the progression of brain disease in persons who--regardless of cause--are already experiencing memory loss or cognitive decline. If you are over age 50, these nutrients can help protect against age-related cognitive dysfunction. And at any age, used on a short-term basis, they'll help sharpen your wits and improve your IQ. At school or at work, if you use your brain in what you do, these cognitive enhancers can help improve your intellectual performance.

Supplements vary tremendously in quality, from very good to very bad. Likewise, prices for the same nutrient differ from one supplement supplier to the next. Certain companies specialize in highest-purity, highest-quality nutrients.

The Anti-Aging Exercise Program

This is both the easiest and the hardest part of the program. Unlike diet and supplements, which can be complicated, it's easy to understand what good exercise consists of. Actually doing it--setting aside the time and building a workable program into your life--is what's hard. If you are having difficulty, consider joining a gym and/or getting some help from a personal trainer.

Combine aerobics and strength training. Stretch. Go for variety. And remember, couch potatoes are guaranteed losers in the longevity game.

How Do You Know It's Working?

Once you've been on the Anti-Aging Program for a few months, you'll feel better--a lot better. But as the months and years roll by, how will you know whether you are achieving optimal results?

Well, you'll have more energy. Your skin will look healthier, and you'll notice that cuts and bruises heal faster. (Though you can't see it, this is happening on the inside as well.) You'll observe that even though you are not immune to colds and flus, they'll be less frequent, less severe, and shorter-lived. At times, you'll even escape a bug that everyone else seems to be catching. There'll be a sparkle in your step and a twinkle in your eye.

People will notice these changes. They'll say things like "You look better," "You seem happier," and "What are you doing?" By all means, tell them.

Biomarkers: The Best Measure of Success

These subjective observations are perfectly valid. But laboratory testing can add a valuable dimension that will provide the objective information you need to fine-tune your program.

Keeping your Anti-Aging Program on track is like finding your way to an unfamiliar part of town: You need a road map. Testing is your road map to longevity. It will tell you whether you're headed in the right direction, and if you get lost, it will help you get back on track.

Tests--technically called biomarkers of aging--identify biochemical, hormonal, immunologic, or metabolic changes that are linked with aging. Testing provides a sine qua non for those who wish to live as long and healthy a life as possible. Because tests provide a special window through which to view your body's subtlest inner workings, they facilitate identification of treament choices and can be used to monitor the effectiveness of your treatment program.

Although your innards may seem astonishingly complex, they're not beyond comprehension. Do you remember that scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her friends confronted the Wizard? Actually a kindly man, the Wizard had succeeded in fooling and intimidating everyone into believing he was utterly omnipotent. Then Toto blew his cover by pulling back the curtain he was hiding behind. Once exposed, the demystified Wizard didn't seem so scary, and a hopeless predicament was suddenly infused with possibilities.

Medical testing pulls back a similar curtain, revealing an intimate view of your inner workings and opening up previously inaccessible therapeutic avenues. Testing can reveal whether, for example, free radicals are having a field day beating up on your antioxidants, or whether your thyroid or DHEA are low, or whether heart disease or osteoporosis is developing, or whether you have nutrient deficiencies.

Early Detection Requires Testing

Alternative and anti-aging medicines assume a spectrum of possible levels of wellness, maintained by your healing systems. Disease happens when these healing systems malfunction. By shifting the focus to earlier in the disease process, to the transitional zone of dysfunction that lies between wellness and overt pathology, we can detect a disease in the making. Then natural treatments can be used to get the body's healing systems back on track, to slow down the disease or reverse it before more serious pathology--requiring more toxic treatments--emerges.

Earlier detection (hopefully before the point of irreversibility) is the driving idea behind a new approach called "functional" testing. Functional testing searches out causative factors, be they digestive, infectious, physiological, biochemical, metabolic, hormonal, organic, or nutritional. Often multiple systems are involved, and often digestive dysfunction and nutrient deficits exacerbate the patient's condition. Rather than ignoring the problem or using symptom-suppressive drug therapies, functional testing attempts to identify dysfunctional tendencies and correct them before they have evolved into distinct pathological entities.

The information that testing provides is tremendously empowering. It supports Renewal in three ways. First, testing provides a means for early detection of any metabolic imbalances that you might have, which, unchecked, would eventually lead to overt or more serious disease. Second, testing produces empowering information you can use to design your Anti-Aging Program. Third, repeat testing provides feedback about the effectiveness of your program, so you can fine-tune it.

Chances are, unless you have an exceptional doctor, he will be unaware of this new approach. Most doctors have not been schooled in alternative and preventive methods, and they may not be familiar with some of the tests commonly used in alternative medical practices.

Final Thoughts

I make a lot of recommendations in this book. No one could follow them all. It is important, however, to take a minute or two to write down what you are willing to do. Everyone has a different starting point: You may already be a vegetarian, but you may not be taking supplements--or vice versa. Write down the diet you plan to follow, the exact supplements you are going to start with, and the exercise program you are willing to commit to. Don't be overly ambitious: You can always increase what you are doing later, after you've established a baseline.

You have plenty of time to make these changes. Don't feel overwhelmed or give up in desperation. Integrating all my recommended changes into your daily life is not easy. It's not necessary to change abruptly to the Anti-Aging Program. We are creatures of habit, and change--meaningful change--doesn't happen overnight. Give yourself all the time you need. First make the changes that are easy for you. Save the hard stuff for later. If you make the commitment and work at it, you'll get there.

You can do all or any part of this program. Although positive changes will produce positive results at any age, the sooner you start, the better. And remember: The extent to which you follow the Renewal Anti-Aging Program determines the extent to which you'll benefit from it.