Posts Tagged ‘longevity’

Do Statins Lower Cholesterol Too Much? Memory Loss, Hormone Decline and Diabetes Can Follow

Thursday, March 22nd, 2012

Statins

Statins

You need it to make every cell in your body, hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, cortisol and DHEA , as well as, Vitamin D and bile acids. Wouldn’t you say that these are essential to life? Not having enough cholesterol to make these essential hormones, bile and vitamins can put you in danger. Many of the diseases that middle-aged persons begin experiencing including depression, abdominal weight gain, prostate, breast and heart disease are directly related to hormone imbalances.

The recommendations have been to keep cholesterol low to protect you from heart disease. It is questionable whether it has had the desired effect on heart disease since that has many factors besides cholesterol as its cause. There are at least 14 independent risk factors that cause arteries to narrow as we age. While high LDL (low-density lipoprotein) and total cholesterol are two of these causes, the other 12 factors also have to be controlled to maintain lifelong healthy blood flow. What the medical community and media are finally recognizing is that levels that are too low can cause harm.

The most popular drug class that is used to lower it, statins, can have some harmful effects. While I don’t recommend stopping your medications completely, I do recommend finding the underlying cause, correcting it and using some lifestyle and natural means to get it to a reasonable level with or without the use of drugs. If you must take a drug, use the lowest dose to achieve the desired result.

Cholesterol can become elevated due to a variety of factors:

  • Genetic
  • Inflammation
  • Oxidation
  • Sedentary Lifestyle
  • Diet
  • Smoking
  • Hormone imbalance

Correcting the underlying factors stated above, may allow you to stop or lower your dose. If you don’t have many risk factors for heart disease, your cholesterol levels may not need to be too low., If you have many risk factors for heart disease keep your LDL level around 100 but not less than 70 and a total cholesterol level between 200 and 180. Consult your doctor for the levels that are right for you.

Cholesterol levels that are too low can increase:

  • Overall increased rate of death or mortality
  • Suicidal behavior
  • Depression
  • Stroke due to bleeding
  • Cancer

Statin drugs

  • Brand names ending in “or” such as:  Crestor, Lipitor, Zocor, etc
  • Generic names ending in “statin” such as:  rosuvastatin, atorvastatin, simvastatin etc.
  • Some not so well known side effects of statin drugs:
    • Memory loss
    • Increased risk of diabetes
    • Depletion of coenzyme Q 10 (otherwise known as ubiquinone, ubiquinol, CoQ10)
    • Fatigue, decreased exercise endurance
    • Muscle pain, muscle breakdown, cramps
    • Liver and kidney toxicity
    • Low thyroid function

Lifestyle, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory food and supplements, low saturated fat diet, increasing Omega 3 fatty acids,exercise and hormone replacement and balance can dramatically lower your cholesterol. It’s more work than just taking a pill, however the benefits are longevity with a quality of life that can keep you slim, sharp, sexy, strong and supercharged. Learn more from my blogs, newsletters, books and programs at www.vibranceforlife.com

Lorraine Maita, MD is an award winning physician, speaker and author of “Vibrance for Life: How to Live Younger and Healthier”. She is an expert in anti aging medicine, bioidentical hormone replacement, weight loss, nutrition, supplements and executive health.  She has a private practice in Anti Aging Medicine www.howtoliveyounger.com in Short Hills, NJ.  You can live younger and healthier; Click Here to Get my Best 7 Tips on How to Live Younger and Healthier!

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Posted in HDL cholesterol, brain health, cardiovascular disease, good health, good nutrition, healthy body | Comments Off

Aging – What is your fear?

Sunday, November 14th, 2010

It’s inevitable. We will all age; the question is how. I saw a poster with 2 pictures on it. One was an elderly woman hunched over a walker and an aide was assisting her. She looked frail, had muscle wasting, a sunken face and a blank stare on her face. The other was a grey haired woman walking up a mountain. She had good muscle mass, bright eyes and skin, and everything about her spoke of strength, vigor and vitality. They were the same age.

Most people fear losing their memory, their mobility, their vision and a sense of themselves. They pine for youth. For all of you that attribute this difference to genes, think again. Your genes are like a light switch and need to be turned on or turned off to operate. It’s your lifestyle and environment that turns these genes on or off. This is why I dedicated my career to de mystifying the aging process. I want to help people turn off the accelerated aging switches.

So, if you or anyone in your family has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a weight problem, declining memory, diabetes, arthritis, autoimmune disease or cancer, an underlying factor in all of these is inflammation. Inflammation can be controlled. Your diet, weight, exercise, stress management, hormones and supplements can play a large role in managing inflammation. Genes can be turned on or off by inflammation and it’s usually the genes you don’t want on that get turned on.

So what to do? Eat a diet low in inflammatory fats by decreasing meat, dairy, saturated fats, and hydrogenated oils.

• Eat more anti -inflammatory fats to decrease your Omega 6 (inflammatory fats) to Omega 3 (anti-inflammatory fats) ratio. You can do this by eating nuts, oils, and cold-water fish high in Omega 3 such as mackerel, tuna, salmon and herring.

• Fat is inflammatory and weight loss can quiet the slow burn. Take some fish oil capsules, at least 2,000 mg of the EPA+ DHA component since these quiet inflammations.

• Since oxidation accelerates inflammation, eat a rainbow of colored fruits and vegetables that have antioxidants and phytonutrients.
• Stress management is also important since it releases cortisol, a hormone that can age us if chronically elevated.

• Hormone replacement therapy can also relieve stress on your system that will allow the inflammatory response to smolder or burn.
• There may be more that you need and a metabolic anti aging medicine specialist can tailor a regimen to your needs.

Good nutrition, a healthy lifestyle, dietary supplements. You are not at the fate of your genes, so age with and edge.

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Posted in aging, aging science, eating healthy, executive health | Comments Off

Can You Drink to Your Health and Keep Weight Off?

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

I don’t like to be the messenger when people want to lose or maintain their ideal body weight. It feels terrible to have to tell people don’t eat this or that. Now at least I have some good news for the ladies who are always jealous that the men in their lives lose weight faster due to increased muscle mass and genetic factors. To maintain your weight, you do not have to deprive yourself completely.

An article in the Archives of Internal Medicine researchers found that: “Compared with nondrinkers, initially normal weight women who consumed a light to moderate amount of alcohol gained less weight and had a lower risk of becoming overweight and/or obese during 12.9 years of follow up.”

Before you go out and drink glasses of Cosmos like Carrie and her friends in Sex and the City, let’s define moderation. In this study less than 30 grams per day – a 12 ounce beer is 13.2 grams, a 4 ounce glass of wine is 10.8 grams and a shot (1.5 oz) of liquor is 15.1 grams. Most restaurants and bars have larger serving size so a glass is usually more than what is defined here. All the women in the study were normal weight to begin with and women tend to substitute alcohol for other foods while men added alcohol to their daily intake.

If your goal is weight loss, I would advise you to abstain and if you have had difficulty losing, go to a medical weight loss program. Some individuals tend to be more sensitive or may have other reasons why they should avoid alcohol. However if you don’t have any risk factors for adverse effects of alcohol, drink a moderate amount, exercise, eat a nutritious diet and stay lean to maintain health and wellness as well as longevity. Consult with your doctor to be sure you don’t have any risk factors. If not, Cheers!

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Posted in Healthy living, Nutrition, longevity, obesity, weight control, weight loss | Comments Off

Blog Vigor Quest –How to Dig a Well to Access The Fountain of Youth

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Are you aging prematurely or at an accelerated rate and are you willing to change your lifestyle to enjoy a better quality of life? On Janurary 15, 2010, The New York Times wrote an article called Vigor Quest featuring Cenegenics Age Management Institute and one of its leaders, Jeffrey Life, a doctor at the institute, and one of her patients. Life’s message is that if a fat, 59-year-old, divorced family physician from eastern Pennsylvania can reinvent himself through a combination of lifestyle alterations and modern pharmacology, so can you.

There are many controversies surrounding Hormone Replacement therapy for men and women, their safety and the ethical questions – Should we be using these drugs? What is their long-term safety? And are there any consequences? It may be very clear to many middle age or older men or women with fatigue, malaise and declines in their physical and mental functions that interfere with their relationships, job, and ability to function in daily life. When something critical is awry, and if their hormones are low, hormone replacement therapy with testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, DHEA, or thyroid hormone fixes the problem with little or no adverse effects. Many patients choose the option of using bio identical hormones. With careful monitoring for adverse reactions and testing hormone levels, side effects can be mitigated while reaping benefits such as increased energy, muscle and bone strength, clarity and overall function. Although there are studies that caution against their use, there are many that show benefit as well as no harm. It takes years before any science becomes generally accepted and the aging baby boomers do not have years to wait for definitive answers.

While this article focused on Cenegenics approach, there are many ways to achieve the goal of a healthy lifespan. The spectrum ranges from conservative to aggressive. There is no magic bullet, rather a combination of lifestyle, nutrition, exercise, supplements and when all else fails, the judicious replacement of hormones to the level that relieves symptoms and enhances health. One would not deny insulin to a diabetic or thyroid replacement to someone who has low levels. Sex and other hormones have a profound effect on muscle and bone strength, energy, mood, clarity, body composition and much more. We all have a responsibility to manage our health, and given balanced information, can make choices that suit our personal needs, values and pocketbook. My website contains some scientific articles and I suggest anyone who is experiencing accelerated aging or has symptoms of andropause, menopause or hormone deficiencies, read and learn about the risks and benefits so you can make an informed choice.

Dr. Lorraine Maita is a Diplomate in The American Academy of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine and Internal Medicine. She specializes in lifestyle, stress management, exercise, nutrition, supplements, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, neurocognitive function and executive physicals in Short Hills, NJ.

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Posted in aging, aging science, anti-aging, good health, longevity | 7 Comments »