Disease-Free Aging Is Partly Within Your Control

Biomarkers
by William J. Evans, Ph.D.

(Page 3 of 3)

As these examples show, people can, indeed, deflect their descent into the Disability Zone by controlling the key physical aspects of aging that are, to a great extent,within human control — your control!

We know that the decline in our ten Biomarkers of vitality can be halted, or at least slowed down considerably, through our exercise and diet program. All ten of these Biomarkers are amenable to intervention via our program — what we call vBiointervention." We have studies to prove they're amenable to change even if you're already 75 years old and feel overburdened with aches and pains and have long since accepted the idea that an energetic lifestyle is over for you.

No, you're never too old to exercise. To the contrary, you're too old not to exercise. That's certainly the lesson that 12 men, aged 60 to 72, learned when they participated in a landmark 12-week muscle-building study we undertook not long ago. If you've got doubts about our claims, consider the results achieved by two of our participants:

Manuel S., a retired banker, was 70 years old when he volunteered for our strength-training study. During the screening interview, he admitted rather sheepishly that the last time his three-year-old granddaughter visited, he was horrified to discover he could barely lift the little girl off the ground. A year earlier he'd been able to pick the child up and whirl her around in the air without even thinking about it. While the child had certainly gotten heavier in the interim, she hadn't grown enough to account for his drastic drop-off in strength. Upon reflection, Manny realized his body was becoming weaker. He could feel it in his arms, back, and legs.

Here's what 12 weeks of strength training did for Manny:

• When the study started, Manny could lift 25 pounds. When it ended, he was able to lift 75 pounds. Picking up his granddaughter became less of an effort once again.

• The size of his leg muscles increased by 17 percent.

• His aerobic capacity increased markedly to the point where he could chase his granddaughter around the backyard.

• Over the course of the study, while he was gaining muscle, he simultaneously lost almost 15 pounds of useless body fat.

Like all of our study participants, Manny was so proud of these startling physical achievements that he didn't want to lose what he'd gained. Seven years earlier, at age 63, he'd given up playing soccer. He loved the game but found it was too difficult to run up and down the field. Our study proved to Manny that his body could be rejuvenated. He continued to engage in regular aerobic and strength-building workouts after the program ended. Eventually, when he felt he was back in peak shape, he rejoined his soccer club. Today he claims he's playing better than he did when he was 20 years younger. He'd better be. His teammates are all 30 to 40 years his junior!

Arthur F. was 62 years old and still working when he participated in our study. For years he'd had a physically demanding job as a loading dock worker. At age 50 he was promoted to foreman, which required much less exertion. He, too, was jolted into volunteering for our study by a humiliating incident. One day he'd tried to help one of his subordinates lift a heavy crate of scrap metal, but even with help the chore overwhelmed him. Of course, his men noticed and let him know about it. The barbs were more than Art could bear. "We understand how it is, Arty...." "At your age, the only thing you should be lifting is a beer can...." "Step aside and let the younger guys do it...."

That night Art took a long private gander in a full-length mirror. What he saw wasn't pretty — an overweight, out-of-shape, over-the-hill guy with a large belly hanging out over his belt. The way he felt wasn't wonderful, either. Among other things, he suffered from mild but chronic lower back pain.

When Art began the study, he had an abnormally high circulating insulin that indicated there could be diabetes in his future if he didn't do something fast to reverse the trend.

Here's what happened to Art after 12 weeks of strength training:

• His strength increased from being able to lift 50 pounds to lifting almost 150.

• He lowered his fasting insulin level to normal, which we ascribe to the fact that his reactivated muscles became more sensitive to the hormone insulin and, thus, started to withdraw more of it from his blood.

Art got so hooked on weight lifting that he, too, continued to do it after the study ended. As a consequence, he strengthened his lower back muscles, and to his great joy, his chronic backache disappeared. He also discovered that the more muscle he built, the more calories he seemed to expend every day even without trying. He didn't change the amount of food he ate, but he did consciously cut down on the fat in his diet. Over time he was able to lose 25 pounds and reduce his stomach circumference by 7 inches.

From Art's point of view, the best bonus of all was being able to keep up with the younger guys at the loading dock, much to their amazement and his amusement.

We feature only two of our study participants here because it would take too long to relate the stories of all 12 men. We can give you their collective results, however. After only three months of working out...

• the muscle strength of all 12 men increased two- to threefold.

• their muscle mass grew by 10 to 15 percent.

When you learn more about how the all-important Biomarker of Strength — the first on our list — influences the others, you'll understand the long-term health implications of these results. Suffice it to say here, if these men continue to work out and increase their muscle strength and size without increasing the amount of calories they eat daily, their exercise efforts will yield the additional benefit of replacing the amount of harmful excess fat on their bodies with muscle.

The moral in all this is simple: If you're in good enough health to hold up this book — which weighs several pounds — and your mind is nimble enough to absorb our message, you can still stage a physical comeback. We don't care how old you are.

Engaging Your Mind As Well As Your Body

How is our program different from all the other fitness-over-50 books?

This book transcends the other approaches to extending the human "health span" for this reason: Unlike those other books and videos, ours is grounded in research-based theory supporting the notion that exercise and a proper diet are good for you. Our program places heavy emphasis on what we're learning daily in our laboratories and through our clinical research studies using real older people as subjects.

To be sure, the solution to biological degeneration is still beyond our reach. No, we scientists at HNRCA have not yet cracked the mystery that has perplexed mankind since the beginning: We still don't know why it's an immutable law that every human being deteriorates over time and eventually dies. But at least we feel we've arrived at the point where we're now asking the right questions. While it's true that formulating answers to these questions involves a lot more research, much of it is already under way and ongoing.

In other words, in this book we'll not only be advising you what to do, we'll be explaining why we're asking you to do it.

In the next chapter, we'll introduce each Biomarker and show how exercise, sometimes in conjunction with a dietary change, can go a long way toward preserving health even into old age. We'll also be giving you self-diagnostic tools that will enable you to decide for yourself how far your body, regardless of your chronological age, has already proceeded along the normal aging continuum. How much of your body mass has accumulated fat at the expense of beneficial muscle tissue? What does the distribution of fat on your body say about your risk for developing certain age-associated ailments?

Part Two of the book focuses on two important self-tests. They'll enable you to find out if your aerobic capacity and muscular strength place you in the category of low fitness, average fitness, or way above the norm for a person of your age and sex.

In Part Three we put you to work. Depending on your fitness category, which you will know from taking the tests in Part Two, we ask you to follow a detailed exercise program we call a "BioAction Plan." Think of this structured program as a transition to a more exuberant lifestyle. Once you've completed our formal BioAction Plan, you'll be able to follow easier — and less time-consuming — exercise guidelines from then on.

We also offer a special section for those older competitive athletes, amateur though they may be, who take exercise very seriously. Drawing on the latest research, we'll erase misconceptions about training and offer information designed to improve performance. Our goal is to help readers in this very special category participate in their sport for many more satisfying years ahead, for we feel chronological age should never be held up as the barrier to athletic endeavor.

Part Four is devoted to nutrition and as much as we currently know about its role in the aging process.

Taking the Vitality Vow

While our Biomarkers Program is researched-based, don't let the notion of medical research scare you. Our program is not hard to understand. Certainly you'll have no trouble comprehending its underlying concepts. Nor is its execution beyond even the most sedentary person's ability, for the program is graduated to take all levels of health and fitness into account. However, we do think you may be challenged by the constancy and commitment our program requires.

Biomarkers is not a program for the unregenerate spectator, fence sitter, benchwarmer, or couch potato. It's a program for participants. Doing the Biomarkers Program justice will require effort on your part almost every day of your life. Our exercise and diet guidelines will stand you in good stead, healthwise, for the rest of your life — provided you follow them for the rest of your life.

One whole chapter in this book is devoted to motivation. Make sure you read it carefully. As strong-willed as you may think you are, you could find, as we have, that aching bodies and unexpected emotions have a way of impeding logic. Your head may tell you that exercise and eating right are sensible things to do, but the rest of your body may act as a saboteur. We give you the weapons to ward off such recalcitrance. We've designed our Biomarkers Program with the goal of capitalizing, as much as possible, on the more sociable, fun aspects of exercise.

In the early 1980s, in conjunction with the Massachusetts Department of Elder Affairs, we started a walking program called "Keep Moving, Fitness After Fifty." The program was built on the pyramid principle. We trained a select group of older people to be the leaders of walking clubs in their community. They, in turn, recruited participants from among friends and friends of friends. The program continues to this day with more than 7,000 registered walkers (average age: 65), and the numbers keep multiplying.

We think the program continues to gain popularity because walking, of all the aerobic sports, is such a congenial way to exercise. It's also why the aerobic component of our Biomarkers Program is centered around walking. It's fun, it puts less stress on aging joints, and it's a way to make new friends while you're improving your sense of health and well-being.

The crucial strength-building component of our program can also be done in the company of friends — and we think it should be. In fact, we urge everyone who undertakes our Biomarkers Program to do it with at least one other person and, preferably, with an amiable, heterogeneous group of friends.

A Prescription for Lengthening Your Health Span

The message of our Biomarkers Program is a straightforward one:

You can adopt a pattern of activity and eating that maximizes your ability to age much more slowly.

Heredity isn't everything, after all. It's certainly possible for a well-maintained Volkswagen bug to last longer than an abused Mercedes, isn't it? By the same token, an active and independent old age is within the reach of any middle-aged person who is willing to get out of that easy chair.

No, it's seldom too late to inject more pep and vitality into your life, not if you're determined enough — and have the willpower to make the effort. We'll tell you what to do, but you have to do it!

The idea you should keep in the forefront of your consciousness like a beacon is that, your health largely depends on you. You can fill your own prescription for successful aging. No matter what your age, it's not too late to turn over a new leaf and start building strength, adding to your endurance, and eating right.

Copyright © 1991 by Dr. Irwin H. Rosenburg, Dr. William J. Evans, and Jacqueline Thompson

About the Author

William J. Evans, Ph.D., a pioneer in the field of age reversal for more than twenty years, has worked as an expert adviser to NASA on nutrition and exercise since 1988, and is the former head of the Nutrition, Physical Fitness, and Rapid Rehabilitation Team of the National Space Biomedical Institution. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with his wife and three children.