Poor health doesn’t happen on accident. The statistics in fact are shocking, according to the CDC more than one third of American adults are obese and approximately 11 million doctor visits are related to obesity. So how did we get here as a nation? Jam-packed schedules, fast food drive through, processed foods, sedentary lifestyles, lack of nutrients, and stress. It’s time to take control of our health! According to the American College of Cardiology one in three deaths are due to Cardiovascular Disease. That’s right, the poor lifestyle choice we are talking about is killing us. It stems back to inflammation, chronic inflammation destroys our bodies from the inside out, affecting every organ and tissue in our body, and it’s the root cause of most diseases.
So to help shed some light on the aging process I sat down with board certified neurosurgeon, Dr. Jacob Rosenstein. I wanted to get behind the eyes of the doctor to see where we as patients are going wrong. I asked Dr. Rosenstein, “How did we get here?” He said, “ People are looking for instant gratification and they ignore their health and then it starts to deteriorate over time, it happens slowly so they don’t really notice it, but they’ve been told many times when they see the doctor to eat right and exercise but they just keep living life in their comfortable pattern. It takes discipline to stay healthy.”
Why is it that we put ourselves on the back burner? Dr. Rosenstein says, “It’s very simple they don’t value their health because if they valued their health they would make it a priority. I’m a busy neurosurgeon if anyone doesn’t have time to exercise and eat right it’s me. But you can make time, it’s a mind-set, it only takes 30 minutes a day to exercise, that’s not much time, it’s easy to do that. And cleaning up your diet eating low glycemic, organic whole-foods is pretty easy to do, you just have to plan it. The best way to start is to avoid any foods that raise your blood sugar, the top ones would be bread, rice, corn, pasta, and anything processed that comes in a box. The closer the food comes from the ground, tree or the ocean, the better it is for you. When you eat processed foods it spikes your blood sugar and once they spike your blood sugar that raises your insulin and insulin is what makes you fat. So fat doesn’t make people fat, it’s the sugar that makes people fat by way of insulin. Whenever insulin is around whatever sugar your body can’t metabolize it gets converted to triglycerides and stored as fat, once that happens blood sugar drops and you get hungry and eat more. If you keep eating carbs you’re feeding fat stores directly.”
Now I know what you are probably thinking, “What about my budget and affordability of organic whole foods?” The reality is you can choose to pay now or pay later, either way we are going to pay. Since we haven’t been paying attention from the beginning we now need to supplement because our bodies are out of balance. Dr. Rosenstein says, “The top supplements that we should be taking is a potent multi-vitamin. No matter how well we are eating we never get enough of our vitamins, minerals and trace elements. Only about 10% of the population gets the government recommended portion of fruits and vegetables, so we need to supplement. Vitamin D is also important, 90% of the patients I see are vitamin D deficient, so make sure you supplement, and fish oil is also important. It’s fantastic for your brain, cholesterol, blood vessels, and it’s a natural anti-inflammatory.”
Although Dr. Rosenstein has been practicing medicine for over 30 years it’s over the past 10 years that he has been practicing health and wellness in the way of optimizing health. I love that he practiced on himself first so he could pass along his findings to the rest of society, a great way of paying it forward. Between 2008 and 2012 he took a regular multi-vitamin as well as all of the suggestions made thus far in the article, and when he was 58 he did a telomere test (telomeres are the structures found at the ends of our chromosomes that keep the strands of DNA from unraveling; telomere length according to scientific studies are a good predictor of health and lifespan), which told him his biological age of 39. He thought that was good but he wanted to do better. So he developed his own multi-vitamin that promotes telomere length called Vitamere Anti Aging and Vitamere Ultra Anti Aging and after taking the newly formulated multi-vitamin two years later he repeated his telomere test and it showed the length of a 10 year old. He said, “I am living proof that telomere shortening can be reversed.” Now that’s what you call effective aging from the inside out. I was so excited to hear this information I asked Dr. Rosenstein how we could have access to his age management program since most people don’t know what to do to be healthy. For more information you can visit his 800ageexpert.com/dr-rosenstein website and pick up a copy of his new book Defy Aging. Some of the greatest quotes from his book are, “Prevention is the cure, you’re only as young as your vascular system, and you can’t out exercise a bad diet.”
So if you have been struggling with your own health, are tired of yo-yo
diets, or feel like your life is out of balance, I want to encourage you to
take control of your health today because it’s the greatest wealth you’ll ever
have!