Health matters: Anti-ageing

First of all, I don’t like the term ‘anti-ageing’ because it’s for sure that we do age. From the very beginning of our life, it is a process which is not reversible. But what we can do, we can age healthily and we can improve our vitality and health for our later days. 

If you look at anti-ageing, it means to slow down the process of ageing and to do so, it will be possible to live longer. I think everybody wants to live longer and since hundred thousands of years people were searching for eternity, so it’s obviously people wish to live longer which is realistic in our days, because we have established a very hygienic situation. We have reduced the infant mortality rate and so in average, people live longer in our days than ever before. On the other side, we also have a lot of possibilities to increase our life span by simple natural mechanisms.

Firstly, it’s helpful to eat less in the evening. Dinner cancelling is one of the most effective strategies to extend the lifespan. This is the only thing which is really scientifically proven on animal trials, not on humans, because the lifespan of humans doesn’t allow statistical analysis on that. But all the knowledge we have from the research shows an expansion of lifespan if we would eat less in the evening. Additionally to that, I would mention to eat less raw things in the evening, that will help not to create a mal-digestive process.

On the other side, we also know that the energy we are producing every second in our body does not have an efficiency of 100 per cent and one of the side-effects of this energy production is called ‘free radicals’. Free radicals are very aggressive substances and if you produce a lot of them, they irritate the body and give rise to some diseases. The range of free radicals is also one fact of reducing our lifespan. So, we should have a vital interest to have them as low as possible and therefore so-called ‘antioxidants’ are very helpful. These are the vitamins like vitamin C, E, beta carotene, but also trace elements like selenium or substances like co-enzyme Q10 and the fatty acids. So the intake of all the substances via nutrition or also via supplementation is helpful to slow down the aging process. One strategy is to add these foods to the diet. Antioxidants are mainly found in vegetables and fruits with intensive colours, so green - broccoli, red - tomatoes, pepper, yellow - carrots, orange. Also, spices like turmeric and especially the cold pressed vegetable oils like omega-3, as mentioned above, are the best foods to supply the body with antioxidants. Because it’s difficult to get all these antioxidants in the natural form, we have a lot of companies around selling these products in different ways and because people want to live longer they are taking these supplementations. Of course, this is a business, but if you compare that kind of business with the pharmaceutical industry, it’s peanuts compared with what these companies are earning.

It’s a very simple recommendation for people wanting to extend their lifespan and stay healthy — watch your eating habits. Eat slowly, chew well, take time for your meals and enjoy your meals, create a rhythm, meaning, give enough time to digest the food, but also take enough time to eat and concentrate on the food you like to have. Drink a lot of water, but drink between the meals and not with your meals. Add lot of foods which help you to increase the antioxidants and specifically, the fatty acids by using cold pressed vegetable oils on a daily basis. Of course, it’s helpful to take some supplements, but that should be always individualised as mentioned above in the orthomolecular medicine. The substances for supplementation are very effective and in the medicine, not only can we measure the effectiveness of these supplementations on clinical aspects but also the measurement of the minerals in the blood and the other systems, is in the meanwhile a possibility and gives us an information if the treatment is as effective as it should be.

Dr Harald Stossier, Director of Vivamayr Medical Clinic, Austria