AGING IS INEVITABLE. It's a complicated process, and each of us experiences it in different ways. It's difficult to pinpoint why one person ages well while another person acts and looks older. In A Whole- Body Approach to Slowing Down Aging, author Dr. Liang-Che Tao presents a self-help guide that works toward protecting your health in your senior years and reducing the risk of age-related diseases. Advocating a practical, whole-body approach, Tao discusses natural and nutritional ways of slowing, and possibly even reversing, the aging process. With the goal of living longer lives in disease-free, healthier bodies, A Whole-Body Approach to Slowing Down Aging helps you understand the ¿ primary causes of aging; ¿ nutritional needs for optimal immune functions; ¿ wise use of antioxidants; ¿ basics of cardiovascular disease and how to prevent it; ¿ idea that osteoporosis can also be prevented; ¿ background of age-related cancer; ¿ importance of protecting the brain and keeping it healthy. Life is mortal, and our bodies are designed to last only so long. In A Whole-Body Approach to Slowing Down Aging, Tao shows that with care and maintenance, our bodies will live well beyond their warranties.

A Whole-Body Approach to Slowing Down Aging

Helping You Live Healthier and LongerBy Liang-Che Tao

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Liang-Che Tao
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-9949-7

Contents

Preface........................................................................................................ixChapter 1 Primary Causes of Aging..............................................................................1Chapter 2 A Whole-Body Approach to Slowing Down Aging..........................................................11Chapter 3 Nutritional Needs for Optimal Immune Function........................................................31Chapter 4 Avoiding Mistakes in Taking Medication...............................................................45Chapter 5 Wise Use of Antioxidants.............................................................................59Chapter 6 Cardiovascular Disease Is Preventable: Have We Missed Doing Something Important?.....................77Chapter 7 Osteoporosis Can Be Prevented and Reversed...........................................................97Chapter 8 Can Age-Related Cancer Be Prevented?.................................................................111Chapter 9 Protecting Your Brain and Keeping It Healthy.........................................................127Chapter 10 Taking Charge of Your Own Health: Maintaining Quality of Life.......................................1551. My Recipe for Reducing the Risks of Age-Related Diseases....................................................1622. Recipe for Red Wine with Onion:.............................................................................163Suggested Reading..............................................................................................165Index..........................................................................................................171About the Author...............................................................................................189Your Record of Morning Fasting Saliva pH Tests.................................................................191

Chapter One

Primary Causes of Aging

We all have a chronological age, which is time-related and involves the celebration of birthdays, and our physiological age, which reflects the rate at which we are getting older. Everyone ages at the same chronological rate, but people do not age at the same physiological rates. The rates of aging throughout the body systems vary considerably from person to person.

Aging is universal, but each of us experiences it in different ways. We are the sum of our life experiences, and the condition of the various environments throughout our life affects our health, which, in turn, affects the aging process. Aging is influenced by many factors, including genetic makeup, lifestyle, eating habits, and environmental exposure. Therefore, our calendar age has little bearing on our real, physiological age.

Scientists have begun to recognize that misplaced, unnecessary, and prolonged inflammatory response may be the common root of many chronic degenerative diseases among seniors. Every disease I studied shared a common theme: inflammation was present. Whenever I look at a disease, everything from arthritis to heart disease, under a microscope, inflammation is always a component. Whether inflammation is simply a secondary response by the immune system or the key to the whole process of disease remains to be solved.

Genes are considered to be powerful predictors of health, susceptibility to diseases, and longevity. However, there is no question that healthy eating habits and a proper lifestyle are also powerful weapons against the susceptible genes we may be born with. Healthy living may delay many of the body changes that aging will bring. As long as no structural damage to a vital organ has occurred, it is never too late to start on the road to better health.

Primary causes of aging are summarized as follows:

1. Suboptimal Physiological Condition of the Body

For many of us, especially seniors, our bodies are no longer in optimal physiological condition due to improper lifestyle and eating habits and our increasingly toxic environment. Intracellular and extracellular tissue fluids outside of blood vessels, where most physiological functions take place, tend to gradually become acidic. The pH of the "body fluids" is traditionally believed to consistently be 7.4. In older literature, the term body fluids literally includes all the various kinds of fluids in the body, but in fact, this number refers primarily to the pH of the blood, which can fluctuate only slightly, from 7.35 to 7.45, due to the powerful, built-in homeostatic control mechanism by chemical buffer systems (including H₂CO₃ and NaHCO₃ systems, Na₂HPO₄ and NaH₂PO₄ systems, and the hemoglobin in the red blood cells). This homeostatic control mechanism in the circulating blood is extremely important; because the body cannot function properly if the pH of the blood falls below 7.35 or rises above 7.45.

When we examine sections of human tissues under a microscope with the help of special staining technique, we are able to observe a vast amount of non-circulating intracellular and extracellular tissue fluids in the space outside of blood vessels. These chemical buffer systems, which are so effective and vigilant in the circulating blood, do not work as efficiently in these relatively stationary tissue fluids. As a result, the pH of these intracellular and extracellular tissue fluids can fluctuate a lot more, depending on our body's alkaline reserve, which is affected by the foods we eat and the lifestyle we lead.

There appears to be much confusion about what constitutes "body fluids" in the older literature, due to lack of techniques to obtain more precise measurements of the amount of fluids in specific parts of the body. Now using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), we are able to accurately measure that the total amount of body fluids in a man weighing 70 kg is approximately 40 L—57 percent of the body weight. In an infant, the total amount of body fluids is around 75 percent of the body weight, but it gradually decreases from birth to old age, with most of the decrease occurring during the first ten years of life. Obesity decreases the percentage of body fluids in the body to as low as 45 percent. The total amount of body fluids in a man weighing 70 kg can be broken down into three major compartments:

(1) Intracellular tissue fluid amounts to 62.5 percent, or 25 L. It represents a conglomeration of fluids from all the different cells. It is not homogeneous and does not circulate.

(2) Extracellular tissue (or interstitial) fluid amounts to 30 percent, or 12 L. It surrounds all the various cells in the space outside of blood vessels and does not circulate.

(3) Plasma amounts to 7.5 percent, or 3 L. It is the fluid portion of the blood inside blood vessels and circulates continuously throughout our lives.

The amount of plasma (blood) inside of blood vessels only accounts for 7.5 percent of the total amount of the body fluids. Circulating blood supplies nutrients and oxygen to the body's cells and transports waste products away from these cells to keep us alive; however, the majority of physiological functions take place via enzymatic reactions in the intracellular and extracellular tissue fluids. Thus, the...