Taking Charge of Your Own Health

Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones
by Suzanne Somers

Can you really feel better as you get older?

Is aging without illness possible?

Is your own internal fountain of youth waiting to be discovered?

Yes, yes, and YES! says Suzanne Somers, the bestselling author of The Sexy Years. It can all be true when you take advantage of the new science of antiaging medicine - a revolutionary approach to achieving the ageless life.

Suzanne Somers introduced millions of women to bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and changed the way we look at menopause with her groundbreaking book, The Sexy Years, and the overwhelming media response to its publication. Now, in Ageless, Suzanne introduces an inspiring, medically validated approach to reversing the aging process and maintaining a healthy, vibrant, mentally sharp, sexually active life - while building the body's natural defenses against age-related diseases.

Ageless is jam-packed with new, updated information on bioidentical hormone replacement and antiaging that will change your life forever. Suzanne talks about:

• Antiaging medicine and how it can help work against the environmental assault that is making us sick, including how to detox the body of harmful pollutants and chemicals and strengthen our weakest glands and organs

• Menopause, which can become an enjoyable passage once the body is in perfect hormonal sync with bioidentical hormone replacement therapy

• The dangers of perimenopause and how women can treat it

• Why so many hysterectomies are unnecessary, how birth control pills may have contributed to the rise of hysterectomies, and how to restore your body to perfect hormonal balance after having one

• How andropause is a real condition for men, and how men can lose weight, regain their youthful physiques, and restore heath, energy, and sexuality, all through bioidentical HRT

• The importance of sleep and the healing work that nature does during this time to balance hormones and increase energy

In this "antiaging bible," Suzanne brings together prominent, Western-trained antiaging doctors who are at the forefront of a medical revolution to show how the traditional medical approach is woefully inadequate and outdated. Its standard of care has been to treat all symptoms with drugs, but in Ageless you will find out how this approach does not make us better. With antiaging medicine you can heal your body rather than keep a chronic condition at bay with drugs. Ageless shows you how to keep your "insides" young, and how this manifests on the outside.

What could be better than having your doctor tell you that you have the bones of a twenty-year-old, or the heart of a thirty-year-old? You can be young on the inside if you follow the advice in Ageless. Suzanne reveals the secrets to youthfulness that everyone can achieve and shows us all how to live the ageless life!

Chapter 1

"To remain oblivious to the hidden regenerative processes inside your body will cause you to die unnecessarily young."

- Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, MD, Fantastic Voyage

Five years have passed, and as of this writing I have now been happily pronounced cancer-free. What a relief. No longer does each ache and pain trigger a fear in me of "Oh God, is that 'it' coming back again?"

Cancer does that to you. It's an inner nagging, a constant reminder that there could be something bigger than yourself lurking out there in the shadows, sitting back, like a predator, deciding when and if it cares to strike again. Now, finally, I can release that fear. The predator has been locked up, in prison, hopefully never to be let out again.

Along the way in this war I have been fighting have come the blessings. I am truly loved by those who mean the most to me. They showed me this over and over during this time. Through it all, I learned about my own strength and courage. I didn't know I had it in me to buck the system by choosing unconventional therapies and doing it my way. But you see, I was never able to wrap my arms around the "standard of care" set forth by Western medicine as the way to treat cancer.

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I needed to be emotionally strong to fight the battle. To help with that, I needed to be hormonally in balance. It is hard to be in a fighting mood when you are hormonally depressed. Balanced hormones keep your emotions in check and I believe (based on my research) are the most effective way to prevent cell proliferation (cancer). Unfortunately, Western medicine's "standard of care" believes that taking away all hormones prevents disease. I believed differently, so I didn't want to go off my bioidentical hormones.

Nor did I want to undergo chemotherapy. You see, I do not believe in the "poison" theory of using chemotherapy. It is my belief that an environment of balanced hormones prevents disease. This is reinforced by many of the doctors interviewed in this book. For one thing, it ablates, or takes away, hormones. Chemotherapy does kill cancer cells, but it also kills the immune system. Without a strong immune system, cancer has a perfect opportunity to proliferate. We need a strong immune system, and balanced hormones to prevent disease. So it didn't make sense to me to "take away" hormones as a means to kill cancer.

As I now see it, there are two ways to fight cancer: build up or destroy. Western medicine's standard of care is to destroy. Well-meaning though it may be, the idea of chemicalizing myself, destroying everything, and hoping my health would come back, coupled with the instructions to give up my hormone therapy, was not appealing.

I decided to approach cancer by "building up." This took courage, because it is daunting to go against the course recommended by one's doctor. But because of the books I write and my understanding of the hormonal connection to health, I had a lot of information. I understood that hormonal balance is key to health and vitality. My decision to go against the standard of care was probably easier for me than it would be for other women not armed with the same information. I approached my cancer through balanced bioidentical hormone replacement and complemented this replacement with Iscador, an anthroposophic medicine whose function is to strengthen and build up the immune system so that disease cannot attack and invade.

I believe this was the best decision of my life. Aside from the discomfort of injecting myself with Iscador every other day for these five years, my health has never been better. I have not had so much as a cold during this time; upon my last checkup, my immune system was so high that my doctor was ecstatic. He said he had never seen an immune system this strong in any of his adult patients. That information was able to put all my fears to rest. How could a life-threatening illness get past an immune system this strong? Great. I had done it. I beat it. I did it my way, with my body almost intact.

So you can imagine my surprise (five years and one month after my initial diagnosis) when my gynecologist told me that I had a pre-precancerous condition (not cancer, not even precancer) growing in my uterus and that in order to prevent possible severe problems down the road, I would need to have my uterus removed.

Why was the sleeping giant trying to rear its ugly head again? Luckily we caught this before it became cancer, yet it was serious enough to force the removal of an organ. I do not take the removal of any body part lightly. What was wrong? I have thought about this a lot. As a teenage mother, I was given my first major chemical, a shot to dry up my milk, and was encouraged to feed my baby Similac formula. In chapter 5 I will discuss at length the protective aspects of breast-feeding and prolactin production. Second, at age eighteen I was put on the early high-dose birth control pills and stayed on them for twenty-two years. Unknowingly, like so many women of my generation, these chemicals put me into a false menopause. All those years of chemicalization were dangerous to my health. Add to this scenario stress and environmental assault and a brutal childhood and you have a recipe for disaster.

The ninth year of bioidentical hormone replacement, things started going wonky (this is my term - don't expect your doctors to use it!). I had breakthrough bleeding, and then after a while I was bleeding continuously. Something was wrong, obviously. You must understand that because bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) is such a new science, all the medical professionals working in this arena are learning as fast as they can, but with each year we all learn more. At this point in my BHRT, I had not heard of "rhythmic cycling," which I will explain in great detail later.

Copyright © 2006 by Suzanne Somers.

About the Author

Suzanne Somers is the author of eleven books, including the New York Times bestsellers Keeping Secrets; Suzanne Somers' Eat Great, Lose Weight; Suzanne Somers' Get Skinny on Fabulous Food; Suzanne Somers' Eat, Cheat, and Melt the Fat Away; and Suzanne Somers' Fast and Easy. The former star of the hit television programs Three's Company and Step by Step, Suzanne is one of the most respected and trusted brand names in the world, representing cosmetics and skin care products, apparel, jewelry, a computerized facial fitness system, fitness products, and an extensive food line. She received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from National University and is a highly sought-after commencement speaker.