Talking About Aging and Disease

People in the health biz throw around the lingo as if everybody has a clue. Well, some do, but some don’t. And even those that do may recognize the word without understanding its meaning.

So, lets talk some terminology.

Especially about things that drag us down–including body parts that insist on going south–and not just for the winter.

We can wrap up disease and aging in just a few words. Not, of course, all the intricacies and complications, but words that should grab out attention and move us to action.

Free radicals: Life’s garbage. As we eat , exercise, breathe, etc., our body processes leave behind free radicals, like ashes from a fire. Nothing we do can avoid free radicals.

Which is not to say we can ignore what’s going on.

Free radicals rust out our innards, in a manner of speaking, and make us targets for all sorts of disease, not to mention some down-the-hill-on-ice aging.

The official description of the rusting out process is oxidative stress. Free radicals oxidize the cells in our bodies.

Let me put it in everyday terms. When metal rusts, that’s oxidation. If you let your metal tools rust, they don’t work so well. Maybe not at all.

Same thing when the body gets oxidized. It doesn’t work as well or look as good as it would without all the rust.

And then we go and make the whole thing worse. We voluntarily add more free radicals to the mix–pollution, a junk diet, stress, a lack of sleep. Oh, golly gee, let me count the ways.

So what to do?

Antioxidants remove the rust. Nutrition provides antioxidants, both in our diets and in supplements.

Unfortunately, food can’t do much nowadays; farming methods, our far-flung distribution system, genetic modification of seeds, and the like have killed most of food’s nutrition–unless you grow your own or have a farmer’s market nearby.

Even then, you need supplements to overcome today’s environmental problems–wherever you live.

And not all supplements are created equal. Supplements you buy at grocery stores, drugstores, Walmart, Target, Sam’s Club, Costco, Trader Joe’s, etc. don’t offer much nutrition. Some are actually anti-nutrition.

It’s also not a matter of taking one of everything. Or a lot of everything. We need to understand what we’re doing.

Which means we need to understand vitamins and minerals. Which is part of what I do.