Anti-aging: Getting it right

One cannot tune into a television channel or read a journal without being inundated with innumerable advertisements on anti-aging skin creams, tonics, nip-and-tuck surgeries and other fancy procedures. Most of these are cosmetic products and procedures which do not have any evidential data to substantiate their claims, subjecting the health, finance and lives of multitudes of patients, and putting them at risk. 

In contrast, genuine anti-aging medicine is the emerging ray of hope for millions of people who seek more scientific and healthy ways of prolonging their healthy lifespan.

Such anti-aging medicine combines breakthroughs in biotechnology with advanced and preventive healthcare treatments. These are aimed at detecting, preventing and treating all age-related ailments and disorders at an early stage and reversing their effects, to a significant extent. Such a “preventive and proactive healthcare” approach helps you stay productive and live independently for a longer period of time.

This approach has its own set of expectations from you as a patient:

• Keep up a good relationship with a physician: While this may sound obvious, ailments can be detected in the early-stage only when one has frequent and comprehensive checkups. Such screenings can help detect the presence of cancers of the breast, prostate and other internal organs, as well as the risk of coronary heart disease.
• Adopting calorific restriction: For over a century, Americans have been advised on the importance of ensuring quality and restricting quantity of calorific intake. It is only in recent years that this has been taken more seriously, thanks to USA becoming the diabetes, obesity and heart attack capital of the world. There is enough literature and medical expertise to guide patients on all of these ailments. 
• Exercise regularly: Regular exercise has been called the panacea of all ills by practitioners of health and fitness for years. While a change in diet plan can control or reverse existing maladies, exercise has a more preventive effect. Aging brings about inflammation in the body which is linked to heart disease, reduced cognitive abilities, muscle atrophy and depression. Exercise considerably reduces inflammation keeping a person healthy and young for long. 
• A Favorable history of smoking: For years, people have known that smoking causes lung cancer and accelerates wrinkling of the skin leading to a ‘smoker’s face’. Now research shows that smoking is also linked to heart attacks and strokes, with women being more vulnerable than men. It can also lead to early menopause in women.
• Drinking alcohol in moderation: Collagen is a tissue that is created and recreated constantly by the human body. It is responsible for keeping the skin elastic taut. Alcohol is known to affect collagen production making frequent drinkers more prone to wrinkles on the skin, sagging skin, heavy jowls and puffy eyes. Alcohol also inhibits absorption of nutrients into the blood and the transport of oxygen to the brain thereby increasing the risk of dementia, stroke or Alzheimer’s.
• Attitude: Maintaining a healthy and positive outlook to life helps manage stress levels that are inevitable in modern life, and consequently helps prolong a healthy lifespan. Studies conducted on people with high stress revealed shorter telomeres in their DNA which is linked to Parkinson’s, diabetes and cancer. Stress also accelerates cell aging leading to vision loss, hearing loss and unnatural fatigue.

As a reputed healthcare provider in the Bay Area, Meridian Medical takes a more holistic approach to anti-aging. Our anti-aging experts will work with you closely to understand your lifestyle, medical history, and design a long-term program that will slow down the effects of aging and reverse them in some areas. And it is quite cost-effective and light on your pocket, which makes the program worthwhile.