In this podcast, Pat Farnack interviews health expert Dr. Florence Comite about anti-aging medicine, how to look younger, and how to feel younger.

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Dr. Florence Comite is an endocrinologist and founder of the Comite Center for Precision Medicine & Health in New York City and the personalized health app, Groq Health. She also wrote the bestseller, Keep It Up! Connect with her on Instagram and Facebook.

Pat Farnack is a news anchor, health correspondent, and is a host of the Health and Well-Being podcast on WCBS News Radio. Connect with her on Twitter and Linkedin.

In this article:

1. In a Small Study from California, Researchers Suggest that Biological Age is Reversible. What is Your Impression of the Study?
2. What Is Anti-Aging Medicine?
3. Is the Fountain of Youth Real, or Is Aging Inevitable?
4. What Can We Do to Live Longer?
5. What Role Do Genes Play in Aging?
6. What Should You Look for If You’re Interested in Anti-Aging Products or Procedures?

Anti-Aging Secrets: The Fountain of Youth [INTERVIEW]

In a Small Study from California, Researchers Suggest that Biological Age is Reversible. What is Your Impression of the Study?

Researchers looked at anti-aging and the role of a combination of medications on the thymus glands, which is responsible for immune function and preventing damage that occurs with aging. Aging causes progressive damage to DNA. It is a small trail but speaks to the broader notion of anti-aging.

What Is Anti Aging Medicine?

As we age, there is increasing harm to our DNA, and, eventually, the damage surpasses the body’s ability to repair itself. Anti-aging medicine aims to reverse this progressive damage to maintain optimal biological health, regardless of chronological age. Anti-aging medicine is the idea that we can postpone aging itself, and in effect, live forever.

Is the Fountain of Youth Real, or Is Aging Inevitable?

The fountain of youth sounds alluring, but it is probably not attainable.

Some people’s genes, however, may keep them alive for a long time. For example, those you read about in the Guinness Book of World Records.

I met a gentleman from Krakow, Poland, who was 112 years old and was still in astonishing shape. He lived alone and did not have full-time live-in care until the last year of his life. He made it into the Guinness Book of World Records and probably died from too much attention.

Although we are living longer now, close to 80 years, many scientists say we have not extended life span. What we have done is diminish premature death and avoided infections with sanitation, vaccines, medication, and proper nutrition.

So, we live longer now, not because we changed the way we age necessarily, but because of the way we live.

The fountain of youth sounds alluring, but it is probably not attainable.

Some people’s genes, however, may keep them alive for a long time. For example, those you read about in the Guinness Book of World Records.

I met a gentleman from Krakow, Poland, who was 112 years old and was still in astonishing shape. He lived alone and did not have full-time live-in care until the last year of his life. He made it into the Guinness Book of World Records and probably died from too much attention.

Although we are living longer now, close to 80 years, many scientists say we have not extended life span. What we have done is diminish premature death and avoided infections with sanitation, vaccines, medication, and proper nutrition.

So, we live longer now, not because we changed the way we age necessarily, but because of the way we live.

What Can We Do to Live Longer?

Despite many companies claiming a scientific basis for anti-aging products, there is no proven intervention to stop or reverse aging, and some can be dangerous. The internet has made it easy to reach consumers. After a while, you hear these claims so often you want to believe it.

However, a personalized precision medicine approach to anti-aging aims to quantify an individual’s unique and optimal health blueprint. Using this blueprint, we must tailor interventions to maintain health with age. Moreover, that can slow the aging process.

In fact, by performing specific tests, we see the damage detectable at the cellular level reversed over time. In other words, we can prevent disorders of aging instead of shortening the life span.

The primary goal of my research and my approach at the Center for Precision Medicine & Health is about prolonging healthy years in life, and not merely extending life. As I say to my clients, their healthspan should match their lifespan.

In my experience, once you regain what I think of as physiologically being younger, meaning on a cellular level turned back diabetes or cholesterol levels, your body acts and feels younger.

You lose weight almost naturally, and you gain muscle. So, we do extend the healthspan and, presumably, you will live longer and in better shape.

What Role Do Genes Play in Aging?

While people are looking at ancestry and where they come from, aging is not necessarily a genetically programmed process. There is not one particular gene that affects aging, but rather a host of genes, and do so directly and indirectly.

When we consider specific genetic programs for aging and death, there are no quick fixes that permit us to treat aging as if it were a disease. However, as we learn more about the genome and the genetic foundations of age, there will probably be many environmental factors that influence how these genes express.

Several agents, including Metformin, DHEA, human growth hormone, and peptides, could affect the way genes behave and may preserve or recover genetic function. However, only consider these or any other anti-aging procedures under medical supervision.

What Should You Look for If You’re Interested in Anti-Aging Products or Procedures?

You have to do your research. A vital starting point is whether real medicine is involved or not.

Is the clinic licensed, or are they solely trying to make a profit? Are there any peer-review studies available from this person or institution? You will want to make sure a scientific review board has looked at it, and the information is science-based.

Remember, the FDA does not test for purity of supplements, so companies can market and label supplements as they wish. Even if testing is available, companies sometimes test these products but do not necessarily stay vigilant. Ideally, look for institutions that have a methodology for validity and keep on top of that methodology.

Finally, science is always evolving. You want people who are continually looking and questioning past and present methodology.

As a clinical researcher and someone who is formerly anti-anti-aging, I believe a scientific personalized precision medicine and health databased approach to anti-aging medicine is the safest approach to this field of science.

Personalized precision medicine is available, and we should make the most of it. None of us want to lose our health. It is our most valuable possession because if you have health, you have everything.

What are your thoughts on anti-aging? Share your comments in the section below.

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• About Florence Comite MD
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