When we look at the fact of aging, or getting older, we often measure it in two ways:

The number of years we’ve been on this earth, chronologically.

And the amount of decay that’s set in: fatigue, lower energy, poor fitness levels, poor sleep, loss of muscle, worsening vision and hearing, digestive problems, memory loss, etc.

But, while we’ve come to see the second as the inevitable result of the first, it’s actually not. It’s the result of getting biologically older, accelerated aging before our time.

We don’t realize this because our view is obviously based on what we’ve seen for decades now. And what we’ve seen is not good.

But it wasn't always like this.

This isn’t a natural situation. It’s a created situation.

Today, 90 percent of the money spent on health care in the US, almost $4.1 trillion, is spent on preventable chronic conditions.

The key word being preventable.

And a 2018 study found that 88 percent of Americans, from all age groups, are in poor metabolic health — meaning they are on the road to the above conditions.

That’s not 88% of the elderly, that’s 88% of the population of the US.

This is despite the US spending nearly double the amount on healthcare and medicine per person as any other country.

But in the Blue Zones of the world, where they don’t have access to either our medicine or our toxins and very poor foods, they live quite healthily to 100 or more.

What we're experiencing isn't aging. It's accelerated aging. And it's completely preventable.

So sit tight, because we’re about to get sciencey.

MEASURING OUR BIOLOGICAL AGE: TELOMERES & STEM CELLS

You wouldn’t know it, looking around at the world today, but science has made great strides in the last many years towards real de-aging.

And one of them is in determining our biological age, because this opens the door to so much more.

Two main systems have been derived. The first I’ll cover is one you may have heard of: Telomeres.

You know about cell division. When new cells are needed, specific cells divide into two cells, the new one containing everything that the original contained.

But these are specific cells that do this, stem cells, embryonic cells that have been with us from birth and which contain the full DNA blueprints for every cell in the body.

As they’re embryonic, these cells, when dividing, can become any cell in the body.

This is necessary. When cells dies and new ones are needed, some of these stem cells divide, creating new cells to take their place.

When we’re injured and must heal, stems cells provide the new cells. When we workout and increase muscle tissue, the new muscle cells are coming from stem cells. When toxins damage cells, stem cells replace them.

Now let’s go further.

In the nucleus of these cells are tiny threadlike structures made of nucleic acids and protein. They’re called chromosomes, and they are what carry your genetic information in the form of your genes, your DNA.

Literally all of the genetic information for the entire blueprint of your body is carried in these genes.

And at the end of each of these chromosomes are something called telomeres, like caps on the end of a shoelace.

And here’s where biological aging comes in: every time a stem cell divides, to make a new cell, the telomeres in the stem cell shorten slightly.

Every time.

Even more, these telomeres can only shorten so many times, about 62, before that stem cell can no longer make new cells.

This is an important point. Your body only contains so many stem cells, and not all of them are in use at any given time.

But the more they’re used to create new cells, because of illness, injury, toxins destroying our cells, poor nutrition leading to the death of cells, etc, the less active stem cells we have over time.

And when we finally get to the end, where we have no more active stem cells for cell division to replace old cells, we can no longer heal ourselves and death sets in.

So if one were to live a healthy life, low in sugars, high in the proteins, heathy fats, vitamins and antioxidants necessary to keep cells healthy, while staying away from trans fats, toxins and harmful bacteria, they would naturally have more usable stem cells with longer telomeres — because they weren’t needed as much.

But if we live the opposite life, eating processed sugars, trans fats and high omega 6 oils (as our modern diet overwhelmingly contains) which damage cells, toxins that damage or kill cells, harmful bacteria that thrive on processed sugars, etc…. then naturally these stem cells would have been much more active in replacing damaged or dying cells.

And as we get older, we’ll have much fewer of them.

But this gives us two things.

First, we can now measure the length of telomeres in a person’s stem cells and determine their biological age, how long they actually have before their body can no longer repair itself.

But even more, we know one of the routes of accelerated aging. And we can not only prevent it — we can actually reverse it.

THE ENZYME THAT LENGTHENS TELOMERES

There is an enzyme (a biochemical that causes action in cells) called telomerase. And it helps to lengthen telomeres.

Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize for its discovery. But even more, she discovered that they can lengthen again through, you guessed it — a healthy diet and lifestyle.

Truly.

Most people don’t believe it until they do it, but we can actually reverse the unwanted conditions in our bodies, and in doing so, we lengthen these telomeres and add more onto not only our lifespan, but the degree of health we’ll have during that lifespan.

In the next article we cover the other test of biological aging, jumping more into DNA, genetics, and the repair of damaged DNA.

Because when our DNA is damaged, the resulting cells made are less functional than they should be, as they're being made from a now-faulty blueprint.

And from there we’re going to dive into each of the ways these DNA and telomeres are harmed, and how we can not only repair them, but get the very most out of them.

But what can we do right now?

KEYS TO PREVENTING & REVERSING ACCELERATED AGING

While there is much information on the subject, and actions we can take, if we break it down to its utmost simplicity, the key points are:

What are we taking into our body that is speeding up the aging process?

And what are we not taking into our body that would be needed to slow or even reverse aging?

Toxins, processed oils and trans fats, high omega 6 fats and processed sugars all work to damage not only our cells, but the DNA and RNA that exist to oversee the continual formation of new, healthy cells.

Any one of these disrupters slowly degrades the health and efficiency of our cells and our DNA, so that new cells are gradually less and less functional.

And this is one of the largest factors behind accelerated aging, causing drier, unhealthy skin, lower energy, slower recovery, muscle loss and much more.

But it can be reversed.

We dive into this more deeply in the Longevity Series, but if our DNA contains the blueprints to build new, healthy cells, which must occur on a daily basis throughout our body, then anything that would harm the DNA needs to be addressed, and the damage repaired.

Toxins are the key disrupters here. And our environment contains more and more of them every year.

Our food, water and air have about 50 times the amount of toxins in them as they did 70 years ago.

This is why it's so important to drink fully filtered water, eat organic foods and not use toxic skin care products.

But even with that, due to the sheer amount of toxins today, we need to be proactive in addressing them and the effects they have on our cells, DNA, and overall aging.

Metal-Free & Chemical Cleanse contains some of the most powerful detox ingredients there are, along with a special ingredient, Fullerenes, that both detoxes and acts as a supercharged antioxidant and anti-aging agent to protect cells from toxic effects.

Then, just as our body uses amino acids to build and repair proteins, it uses nucleic acid building blocks to build and repair DNA and RNA in our cells.

Nu Cell is a very unique blend of nucleic acids that the body uses to help repair the damage done by toxins and restore the integrity of our DNA and RNA.

And PerfectAmino, of course, is the exact ratio of essential amino acids that your cells need to enact the plans of our DNA for the healthiest, youngest cells you can have.

Each one of these is crucial to prevent abnormal, accelerated aging.

And they work.

Lastly, Reds and Greens, along with Multi Complete, provide our cells and microbiome with key adaptogens, antioxidants and other nutrients they need to operate at their fullest and defend themselves against the chemicals that would harm them.

While there is much more covered in the Longevity Series, the above trio of Metal-Free, Nu Cell and PerfectAmino form a truly cutting edge address to aging, and with Greens, Reds and Multi, our body has what it needs to operate at it's fullest well into our later years.

Try the above for 4 weeks and see just how good you can feel.