From the Desk of Carolyn Dean MD ND
I’m currently preparing a talk on Longevity for my monthly wellness gathering. I’ll focus on how our cells and tissues function as we get older and what we can do to best support our cells and tissues. Sounds straight-forward, right?
But a quick online search brings up information about ‘reversing your biological age’ through expensive biotech procedures, pills and potions, including “blood doping” to change cell function. The promise: a longer, healthier life with less time spent in decline.
NOTE: Blood doping is a method used to enhance athletic performance by increasing the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream, thereby improving oxygen delivery to muscles. I’ve heard that Bryan Johnson gets blood transfusions from his son as part of his anti-aging protocol.
Bryan Johnson is a world-famous “biohacker.” The centimillionaire spends $2 million a year attempting to reverse the aging process and trying to not die.
The core of today’s longevity medicine revolves around extensive testing—full-body MRIs, genetic panels, and biochemical markers—to detect possible risks and intervene to prevent or delay the development of any potential diseases or illnesses.
Actually, the Human Genome Project was an attempt to delay aging by cutting out offending genes. The project was thwarted when they only found 23,000 human genes. Researchers thought they would find 100,000 genes that would make it “easy” to snip out the bad genes. With only 23,000 genes, that meant a lot of interaction and use of genetic cofactors that turned out to be vitamins and minerals that they had not accounted for.
Presently, anti-aging interventions include developing a beneficial diet, a regular exercise routine and sound sleep habits, which everyone should already be doing. Then, depending on your health profile, or your attitude toward medication, mainstream medicine might suggest an experimental “repurposed drug” like metformin, developed for diabetes but being used experimentally for “anti-aging” benefits. (I personally would never take Metformin.)
In a recent study, “repurposed drugs”, such as cancer killing drugs, Trametinib and Rapamycin were shown to work synergistically together to increase the lifespan of mice by 30 percent, decrease inflammation, and improve frailty. What’s shocking is that researchers are suggesting this combination of cancer killing drugs be repurposed for humans to extend lifespan.¹
That’s how mainstream medicine is tackling longevity – by exploring drugs they can prescribe for the rest of your (supposedly longer) life. Each drug comes with major side effects, combining increased risk of immune suppression, infections, serious bleeding, blood clots, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, and heart problems. This isn’t health and longevity research; it’s big pharma securing a drug-filled future complete with drugs to manage the side effects of the first round.
The ”anti-aging” illusion
Online, longevity is often tangled with “anti-aging,” as if they’re the same thing. My interpretation of anti-aging is quite literal: “against aging” which translates, at least to me, as being against getting older. Why would we be against getting older? Around the world, what people really oppose is looking older.
As of 2022, the global anti-aging industry was worth 40 billion dollars – an entire economy designed to remind you that you are indeed getting older, that it’s not OK to look like you’re getting older, and to offer cosmetic procedures, products and treatments to restore a youthful look.
What’s shocking to me is that so many of these cosmetic procedures are NOW targeting women in their mid 20s with the recommendation that they start Botox as a way to prevent crow’s feet and frown lines from even forming! These young women are guided to prevent natural lines on their faces by injecting this botulism product to freeze their expression by blocking the nerve signals to muscles.
So, imagine starting Botox, or fillers, or laser “anti-aging” procedures in your 20s. Are you intending to inject chemicals into your face until your 90s to appear wrinkle-free? After all, it’s only considered safe for temporary use. Long-term, there’s no reliable data.
The long-term side effects of Botox (yes, I’m picking on Botox because it’s a pervasive anti-aging procedure) include muscle wasting because the drug paralyzes those muscles in your face and the muscles can forget their function.
Another long-term side effect is that your body might develop a resistance to this poison being injected. What that means is that your body has to work hard to develop antibodies to counteract the toxin. It’s also important to know that this toxin can spread to untreated areas of your body, causing paralyzing effects.
If you encounter Botox resistance, experts suggest switching to another injectable brand that the Botox antibodies won’t recognize. It’s not recommended that you cease the Botox treatment to allow the toxin, and its antibodies to clear from your body. This “washout” process could take years for your body to stop producing the antibodies.
Note: there is virtually no long-term data on the effects of Botox as most clinical observations only track people for six months.
Real longevity: cellular health
My approach to longevity is simple: support how our cells and tissue’s function. Neither longevity medicine nor anti-aging marketing, as they’re typically practiced, address true cellular health.
Magnesium: the cornerstone of longevity
In The Magnesium Miracle I discuss how magnesium deficiency is the enemy of healthy aging and how correcting it can restore cellular function and resilience. Here are a few ways magnesium supports you as you get older:
Telomere protection
Telomeres are the caps at the ends of chromosomes that protect them from unraveling or getting attached to another chromosome. They are like the plastic cap at the end of a shoelace or the knot at the end of a string to keep it from unraveling. Telomeres get shorter as we age and longevity researchers are desperately trying to find ways to protect our telomeres. Of course, they’re taking the drug approach and ignoring the fact that magnesium is tightly wrapped up with telomeres.
First, telomeres are damaged by a number of environmental factors, and all of these factors are treatable and preventable by therapeutic levels of magnesium. Instead of waiting for a magic pill to reverse aging, please support your telomeres and prevent them from deteriorating with an appropriate amount of magnesium in the picometer, stabilized ionic form.
Supporting your telomeres will have a cascading benefit to your heart and vascular health, making you less susceptible to high blood pressure and congestive heart failure.
Inflammation
Chronic diseases that that shorten the lifespan – atherosclerosis, hypertension, osteoporosis and diabetes all share one thing – inflammation. Magnesium is a powerful anti-inflammatory and when its deficiency is corrected it’s able to target inflammatory responses throughout the body.
What you can do to support your longevity
Magnesium should be in the picometer, stabilized ionic form. And the dose should be around 600mg per day. This liquid magnesium is diluted in a liter of sea-salted water and sipped throughout the day. Magnesium is necessary for the proper function of 80% of known metabolic functions.
Vitamin D is a prohormone, which regulates the production of hormones as well aiding the absorption of calcium to protect our bones. Most vitamin D blood tests show that we may need about 5,000iu a day along with a dose of vitamin K2. Remember, magnesium is necessary for the activation of vitamin D.
Vitamin B Complex – a methylated and food-based B complex formula along with two sulfur-based amino acids provides several vitamins that are necessary for adrenal support and detoxification as well as all the critical methylation functions of the body.
Multiple Minerals – picometer, stabilized mineral ions support thyroid hormone production as well as adrenal and sex hormone balance.
The above formulas make up my longevity protocol, and I feel better now in my mid 70s than I did in my 30s!
The best way to proceed is to call our wonderful Customer Experience Team to help build a healthy protocol that you can depend on.
Carolyn Dean MD ND
The Doctor of the Future
