During my years in medical school, repeatedly, my professor said that the brain cannot regenerate itself, that we were given certain number of brain cells at birth, and if they were damaged or destroyed, they could not be replaced.  Intuitively, and in my gut I felt that this information was incorrect.  So I rejected that thought.  I knew somehow the brain, as all other cells in our body have the ability to regenerate.

That was conventional wisdom, without any scientific “evidence,” that was accepted for many years, throughout the 20th century.

In fact, in 1928, Santiago Ramon Y Cajal, said, in Degeneration and Regeneration of the Nervous System,  “In adult centers the nerve paths re something fixed, ended, immutable.  Everything may die, nothing may be regenerated.”However, in 1988, the journal Nature Medicine, published a study that indicated the brains ability to grow new cells, also known as neurogenesis, does in fact happen in humans.

Sharon Begley, noted in her book, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, “the discovery overturned generations of conventional wisdom in neuroscience.  The human brain is not limited to the neurons it is born with, or even the neurons that feel and after the explosion of brain development in early childhood.”

Medical researchers have learned that within each of our brains, there is a population of stem cells that are continuously rejuvenated replenished and can develop into brain cells.  Simply stated, all of us are experiencing brain stem cells therapy throughout the course of our entire lifetime.

New brain cell development is controlled by our DNA.  A particular gene codes for the creation of a protein, known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).  It plays a key role in the development of new brain cells.  Research studies have shown that decreased BDNF levels occur in patients with a variety of nervous system conditions, including depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Interestingly, and fortunately, many of the factors that influence our DNA to create the BDNF factors are  under our direct control.  In fact, the gene that turns this chemical on is stimulated and activated by a variety of factors, including exercise, limiting calories, curcumin, and DHA, the omega-3 fatty acid.

Do you understand how powerful this message is?  You have these factors, within your grasp, and represent the choices you can make to turn on a gene for new brain cell development!  In other words, you can treat yourself to stem cell therapy by taking control of your genes!

In my next post, I will share with you a few practical and simple steps to help create new brain cells!

Source:

www.davidperlmuttermd.com

If you’re feeling down and tired, worried about your age, whatever the case may be, watch this inspiring video:

Over twenty years ago, I decided to remove the words “old,” and “aging” from my vocabulary I chose to no longer use them.  Honestly, even though it is a popular term, I have a problem with “anti-aging,” I prefer longevity.  After hearing Deepak Chopra, MD speak about the remarkable research on reversing aging conducted by Ellen Langer, Ph.D., a Harvard professor.

We are as old as we think, and even more importantly, we are as old as we are stressed. Stress contributes to the deterioration process known as aging.

The cost of senior medical treatment in industrialized nations may need to be re-examined, U.S. researchers say.

Stony Brook University researchers and collaborators from Austria say increased longevity and improved health means populations are “aging” at a slower rate and the burden may not be as significant as anticipated.

Science magazine published this study.  The scientists assert that chronological aging can be misleading and should not  be the fixed standard for measuring and.

“Most of our information about aging comes from indicators published by the United Nations and statistical agencies,” said Professor Warren Sanderson from Stony Brook.

“These indicators, which are used worldwide to determine healthcare and retirement costs, are based on chronological age and in many instances consider people as being old when they reach age 65 or even earlier,” he said.

This is an antiquated approach, according to the researchers is out of date, due to the fact that people live longer and a 65 year old person isn’t “old”  anymore.

Research shows the attitude, social engagement, exercise have a profound impact on our health and “aging” or more appropriately stated, longevity.

The vast majority of healthcare costs occur in the last few years of a person’s life and these years happen at ever-later ages as life expectancies increase.

Population aging will be the source of many challenges in the future, the study says, “but there is no reason to exaggerate those challenges through mismeasurement,” it concludes.

Source:

Science Magazine

If you’ve read my posts, you know I firmly believe that age is just a number and that research studies indicate how we think and feel about our age and  “aging” has a direct impact on the “aging” process. To read more click here.

Click this link and learn about a woman who looks 30 years younger than her age, without plastic surgery, and is healthy, vibrant, and moving better than most of us.

Over twenty years ago, I made a very interesting discovery as to how to motivate my patients regarding certain aspects of their health and well-being.  I’d come to see how our health care system unfortunately encourages dependency on doctors, medications,  and other treatments, rather than promoting effective and safe lifestyle changes that actually empower patients.

I’ve literally talked myself blue in the face attempting to get patients to stop smoking. A major risk factor for more diseases than I can count, but that’s another blog post.

One day, I ran across a study that determined  that smoking contributes significantly to skin aging, and smokers usually look five to 10 years older than their non-smoking counterparts.

So during my discussions with patients, about smoking cessation, and I must admit this tact was especially effective with women, after giving my normal speech reminding them about the devastating health effects of cigarette smoking, I added one sentence. “If you stop smoking, you’ll look younger.”

Unbelievably, approximately sixty to seventy-five percent of my female patients I shared this information with, stopped smoking immediately!!

I wasn’t surprised at all, considering the way the necessity of a youthful appearance is “marketed” to women of all ages.

I’m not judgmental at all about this.  I just found my experiment interesting.  We’re all human  and are very sensitive to the messages we receive from environment.

So I share that with you twenty years after the fact to let you know, I don’t think much has changed, and if anything, the youth marketing approach, is even more intense.

Keeping that in mind, I find it very interesting that one of the most profound anti-aging, youth engaging techniques is minimally reported in mainstream media.  Probably because it’s not packaged in a way that sells, and requires a lot more effort than the creams, procedures, pills, surgeries and everything else that’s  given to us on the media’s silver platter as a method to stay younger.

Exercise is probably the most powerful physical technique available. Study after study has found that it’s never too late for anyone, including those approaching 100years to begin to exercise.

Exercising can literally make your cells, organs and body younger! And after you get into the routine of doing it, it does become easier, and you feel better, and younger.  Exercise, actually helps your genes to either slow down or reverse the aging process.

I must admit, with my busy schedule, I haven’t exercised as often as I should.  Part of my problem, or I should say challenge has been not only to find the time, but to really commit myself to doing it. So I did and I haven’t felt this good in years.  I am doing a couple of dance based exercise programs, and having a ball.  I can literally feel my body thanking me for doing this. My mood is better, I’m losing weight (just in time for yet another high school class reunion), sleeping better, and feeling, quite honestly younger and healthier.

My parents taught me a lot about health.  They were two of the healthiest people I’ve ever known. They were active all of their lives, and had a love of life that was inspiring.  The gardened, exercised, and did so many other physical activities, I can’t remember half of them.

But I do remember one critical moment that changed my life. I took them on a trip to the Carribean when they were in their early seventies and I was in my mid thirties.  The guest house we stayed at was on the top of a very steep hill.  I was worried that they would have a challenge walking up the hill, and  for the first couple of days we rode a cab back from the beach, until they informed me I needed to save my money and we could walk up the hill.  After the first walk up, the next day we stopped half-way, rested for about ten minutes.

My mother asked me, “Are you ready to go up?” I said no.  She replied, “See you at the top.” I sat there, out of breath and out of shape, watching her and my father easily glide up the rest of the steep hill. In that moment I realized how out of shape I was.

I asked myself, “They’re in the seventies, and you’re in your thirties.  What is wrong with this picture?”

I knew I needed to exercise.  When I returned home, I signed up for a membership at a local health club, and for the next ten years exercised there at least three days a week.

If you’re thinking about staying young, the best thing you can do is to get off the couch, or step away from your computer, iPad, or other amazing technological gadget and move!

When you do, your body will reward you.

Yours in good health,

Elaine R. Ferguson, MD

A study conducted by the National Institutes of Health claims that people who consumed high amounts of fiber, especially those from grains, have a significantly lower risk of dying over a nine-year period when compared to those who had a lower intake of fiber.

Whole grains, beans, nuts, fruits and vegetables, contain fibers that helps the body in many ways, including lowering the blood cholesterol levels, improving blood glucose levels, and bowel movements.

Earlier studies have also suggested of fiber may be linked to a decreased risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and some cancers, including: cancer, but the evidence is conflicting as to whether or not there is any relationship between consuming fiber and longevity.

This study involved almost 400,000 people who are part of a larger diet and health study.  They were between the ages of 50 and 71 years, when the study began.

The findings will appear in the archives of internal medicine.  Researchers led by the national cancer Institute, concluded “that a diet rich in dietary fiber from whole plant foods may provide significant health benefits.”

In particular, the researchers analyzed data from 219,123 men and 168,999 women who completed a detailed food questionnaire in 1995 in 1996 to determine the amount of fiber they consumed on a day-to-day basis.

Those with heart disease, diabetes and most cancers were left out of the study.  At the beginning.  Researchers also excluded those who reported “extreme” intake of fiber.

The participants fiber intake usually range from almost 13 to approximately 30 g per day and man and 11 to 26 g per day in women.

In the United States, the current dietary guidelines recommend that people consume 14 g of fiber per 1000 calories consumed per day or about 28 g a day for a typical adult diet of 2000 calories.

Over an average of nine years of follow-up, 20,001 and 26 men and 11,000 331 million died.  Over half of the deaths were caused by cardiovascular disease and cancer.

The researchers divided the participants into five groups from the highest to the lowest intake of fiber.  Those who consumed the most fiber were 22% less likely to die over the nine-year period, compared to those who consumed the least amount of fiber.

Men with the highest intake of fiber had a 23% reduction in the risk of dying while women experienced about a 19% reduction.

The study also found that significant reductions in the risk of death from heart disease, pulmonary and infectious diseases among both men and women, with those who consumed the greatest amount of fiber experienced the highest benefit.  There was also a reduction in the risk of dying from cancer that was found in men, but not in women.

According to Dr.Yikung Park because men have higher rates of death from cancers of the liver, bladder, kidney, esophagus, and had a knack, these tides in which the risk is lowered by a diet rich in fiber may be the reason why th they experience the greatest reduction.

The study also evaluated the typhus fiber consumed and found that in both women and men the greatest health benefits came from whole grains, as well as pains, although the benefits of beings was more significant for women than for men.  Festival consumption also appear to provide benefits, but the a proven did not result is statistically significant increases in longevity.

Fruit base fiber had no impact on longevity.

The researchers controlled for other significant factors that affect our health, including smoking, obesity, and exercise.

Source: archives of internal medicine.

Keywords: longevity, antiaging, diet, five for

A professor of pediatrics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, was very surprised to discover that exercise presented a strain of mice from becoming prematurely gray.

His study was published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that exercise, reduced or eliminated practically every significant effect of aging in mice that were genetically program to rapidly age.

In the experiments, the researchers used the mice who had a genetic alteration that affects how their bodies prepare malfunctioning mitochondria, which are the energy producing organelles in the cells.  Mitochondria combined nutrients and oxygen to create energy/fuel for the cells.  They are the power generators.

These organelles have their own DNA, that are different from the cells DNA.  Mitochondrial DNA calms from the mother.  During the course of life, the mitochondria can experience small genetic changes, known as visitations, which normally are repaired by a special mechanism within the self.  But over the course of time, the number of mutations begins to overwhelm the system’s ability to repair them and the mitochondria dysfunction and die.

Many researchers believe that the loss of helping mitochondria is an up or written to factor in the aging process.  As the mitochondria fail to function, the cells they fuel begin to shrink or die.  Brain value decreases, here is loss, or loses its pigmentation, muscle strength, organs shrink, etc.

The mindset we used in this study were deficient in the primary repair system, so they developed malfunctioning Marquand very early in their lives as early as three months, an equivalent of 20 years in human life.  By the time they were a month old or in their early 60s in human terms, these animals are extremely frail with shrunken brains, enlarged hearts, smaller muscles and patchy gray for.  They became listless barely moving around in their cages and all were dead before their first birthday.

Except for the mice that exercised.

50% of the mice exercise 45 min. three times a week, they were allowed to run on a will, beginning at three months of age.  They were required to run fairly briskly and was considered to be the equivalent of a person running a 50 or 55 min. 10K 6.2 miles.  These mice were maintained on this exercise regimen for five months.

At eight months of age, when there not exercising lab mates were frail and dying, these running rats remained youthful.  They had no signs of aging and all of their bodily functions were normal.

However, the most interesting and perhaps remarkable finding, although they still had the mutation that should have prevented the repair of their mitochondria, they have more mitochondria over all and has far fewer mutations than the non-exercising mice had.  When they were a year old, none of the mice that had exercise had died from natural causes.

The researchers were very surprised by the tremendous impact that exercise had on the animals aging process.  They had anticipated finding did the exercise would impact the heart and muscles, but they had not expected that it would affect every organ system that was study.

Additional studies have determined that exercising has an affect on the course of aging, but none has demonstrated such a significant and comprehensive effect.  The exact mechanism as to how exercise changes that aging process still is unknown.  In this experiment the exercising animals experience in ink trees in the production of a protein called PCG-1alpha, which are regulates genes involved in in energy creation and metabolism, including mitochondrial function.  Exercising also triggered the repair of malfunctioning mitochondria to old mechanism beyond the regular repair pathway; interestingly, that pathway in these mutant mice, according to the researchers doesn’t it just, but nonetheless, their mitochondria was a pair.

Dr.Tarnopolsky is currently supervising several experiments that he anticipates will help to demonstrate the precise physiological mechanisms.  But for now, he said, “exercise alters the course of aging.”

And despite the fact that this particular experiment involves strenuous aerobic exercise.  He is not convinced that it is absolutely necessary for these health benefits.  Other studies of senior citizens have determined that lifting weights can improve mitochondrial health as can moderate endurance exercise.  There may be a threshold regarding the amount of exercises necessary to affect the physical changes of aging but as he notes, anything is better than nothing.  If you haven’t been active in the past, he recommends that she start walking 5 min. a day, then begin to increase your activity level.

The potential benefits of exercising are good for everyone.

Source: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A great debate exists today regarding whether our thoughts can change our lives, also known as the  law of attraction.  I believe the missing link in this debate is a more holistic approach to mind bod role our

The study appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology: Health and Well-being, is the most comprehensive review thus far of scientific research linking health and happiness.  Its lead author, University of Illinois professor emeritus of psychology, Ed Dienr, who was also a scientist for the Gallup organization, the viewed long-term studies of human subjects, experimental animal and human trials, and studies that measure the health status of people stressed by natural events.

Dr. Dyer said.  “The general conclusion from each type of study is that your subjective well-being–that is, feeling positive about your life, not stressed out, not depressed–contributes to both longevity and better health among healthy populations.”

One study determined after following 5000 university students for more than 40 years, for example, that those who were the most pessimistic as students died earlier than their peers.  Another longer-term study that followed 180 Catholic nuns from early adulthood to senior citizenship found that those who wrote autobiographies that were positive in their early 20s tended to live longer than those who focus on negativity in their accounts of their early lives.

There are a few exceptions, however.  Most of the long-term studies have determined that anxiety, depression, and a lack of enjoyment of one’s daily activities, as well as pessimism are all linked to higher rates of disease and a shorter life.

Animal studies showed that there is a significant link between poor health and stress.  Research in which animals receive the same care but differ in their stress levels as well as an abundance of nest mate in their cages, for example, have found that stressed animals are much more susceptible to heart disease, have weaker immune systems, and tend to die sooner than those living in less crowded conditions.

Human studies have determined that positive, optimistic moods lower the levels of stress related hormones, promote a quicker recovery of the heart.  After exercise, and increase immune system function.  Other studies have shown that marital conflicts and high hostility in married couples are linked with slow wound healing and impaired immune system response.

Well, happiness might not prevent or cure disease, become healthy findings that positive emotions and life enjoyment contribute to enhance health and a longer life span is stronger than the data linking obesity to read juiced longevity, Diener said.

Dr. Diener said, I was almost shocked and certainly surprised to see the consistency of the data.  All of these different kind of studies point to the same conclusion: that health and then longevity in turn are influenced by our mood states.

“Happiness is no magic bullet, but the evidence is clear and compelling that it changes your odds of getting disease or dying young.

“Although there are a handful of studies that find opposite effects, the overwhelming majority of studies support the conclusion and happiness is associated with health and longevity.  Current health recommendations focus on four things: avoid obesity, eat right, don’t smoke, and exercise.  It made the time to add ‘be happy and avoid chronic anger and depression’ to the list.”

Source: applied psychology: health and well-being

Many people, as they approach their sixth and seventh decades of life have become very fearful and stressed about developing this dreaded disease.  A disease that was unheard of only 30 years ago.

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked, especially by baby boomers is,  “Is there anything I can do to prevent Alzehimer’s?”

YES, course there is. 

When I was a medical student, during the 1970s, Alzheimer’s disease was rare!

I saw one case during my entire medical school career. I know that sounds incredible, but that is the truth.

A recent conducted at the University of Pittsburgh and three other universities has determined that  a year of moderate exercise — the kind enjoyed by senior citizens who walk laps at the mall — can increase the size of an area of the brain related to memory in older adults and lead to improved spatial memory.

The study, published this month  in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was the first of its kind to follow non-exercising  adults ages 60 to 80 who already were experiencing a natural shrinking of the hippocampus, a section of the brain involved in memory function.

Researchers found  magnetic resonance images taken before, during and after the study determined that adults who were involved in moderate aerobic activity — walking 40 to 60 minutes three times a week — experienced an increase in the size of the hippocampus, while those who engaged in stretching exercise only experience slight shrinkage.

Spatial memory tests taken before, during and after the study showed improved memory function among the walkers.

“This research is very exciting,” said Kirk Erickson, professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and study lead author. “We often think of the aging brain as being immutable tissue that atrophies as we grow older. But now we know just a moderate amount of exercise can have a large impact. We also know conclusively that exercise works from the neck up.”

Art Kramer, director of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois and senior author of the study, said the improvements were the equivalent of turning back the clock two years for the walkers.

“It’s a very modest program, it’s not running a marathon. … We took professional couch potatoes who didn’t get much exercise, started them out walking 15 minutes and gradually worked them up to an hour,” Beckman said.

“The toughest part isn’t the research, it’s convincing people to get off the couch.”

Source:  http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked is how to  prevent Alzheimer’s Disease.