Reversing Chronic Disease and Aging: A Holistic Approach to Longevity
Body Evolution is a place that aims to support true health and longevity for all of our patients and students. My purpose is to help you feel better and look better, so you can live longer! Let me begin by discussing chronic diseases and their impact on your long-term health-span and quality of life.
Chronic diseases are only a recent part of human history. In the past, people sought out healers, bonesetters, physicians or infirmaries only when they became very ill. These illnesses were primarily due to bacterial or viral infections, accidents, or other traumatic injuries. Cancer was very rare in the distant past. The concept of chronic diseases emerged in the seventies, as a result of the introduction of processed foods for convenience, an increase in office and sedentary work, with a decrease in the physical activity of many people. While lifestyle and diet related diseases such as high blood pressure and heart disease emerged in the seventies, they exploded in the late 20th and early 21st centuries with the prevalence of high cholesterol, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver outpacing our limited understanding of epi-genetics. These chronic diseases are 100% caused by excessive carbohydrate intake and insulin resistance. Autoimmune diseases, as well as neuro-sensory processing conditions, rare in the past, expanded in frequency during this time, spawning new medical specialties and a multitude of medications.
Chronic diseases are commonly known as Western diseases, because they are more prevalent in affluent and industrialized nations. It is neither affluence or industrialization that leads to chronic disease, instead it’s the sedentary lifestyle, and calorie rich, nutrient poor diets these countries consume, coupled with high amounts of sympathetic nervous system activity, better known as “bad stress”. What we have learned in the last 10 years is that all chronic diseases, and many autoimmune and neuro-sensory processing issues are reversible through nutrition and lifestyle habit changes. It’s not so much your genes that plague you, but what the epi-genetic, or environmental influence of poor food, toxin overload, sympathetic dominance and diminished physical activity choices does to your genetic expression.
Chronic diseases can be categorized as follows:
- Diseases of carbohydrate overload. Our standard American diet, or SAD, is loaded with sugar and refined carbs that have made two-thirds of Americans overweight or obese. Elevated blood sugar can lead to metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes), diabetes type 2, cognitive decline, dementia and many other dire conditions. 40% of Americans are now considered obese, with excess body fat stores in and around the organs. At Body Evolution, we help you to make good choices through nutrition education, exercise, stress reduction and health mentoring. Your personal eating strategy is developed, one that includes foods balanced in fats, proteins and the proper carbohydrates. This eating strategy promotes weight optimization, and in many cases, reversal of pre-diabetes, diabetes, high cholesterol, fatty liver and metabolic syndrome.
- Diseases of inflammation (inflammaging) and gut dysbiosis. Certain molecules in common foods cause us to experience systemic (whole body) low grade inflammation, along with an imbalance of our gut microbiome. Many common gastrointestinal problems, including acid reflux (GERD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), bloating, constipation, and ulcerative colitis (UC) stem from this imbalance. The correct amount of stomach acid and small intestinal enzymes, allow us to digest our food, and drugs that reduce stomach acid short term, can harm our ability to digest and assimilate our food in the long term. An entire host of autoimmune disorders originate in the gut as a result of dysbiosis, and small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). At Body Evolution, our health foundations program can reverse or diminish many of these afflictions through nutritional counseling and lifestyle modification.
- Chronic pain of joints and soft tissues, bone strength, proprioception and balance. Our modern lifestyle may give us a longer lifespan, but our healthy years, known as health-span, is in decline. Our muscles and bones change as we age, causing many problems and conditions. Once thought to be standard aging complaints, these problems are largely reversible through lifestyle factors and nutraceuticals. At Body Evolution, we use a combination of Classical Pilates, Power Plate whole body vibration technology and Plyometric rebounding to naturally strengthen bone, muscle, and tendon; along with increasing bone density to prevent and in many cases, reverse osteopenia and osteoporosis. Pharmaceuticals certainly can’t do that. The expert training you receive, will create supple and mobile joints, improve balance, and enhance endurance to rewind your biological clock by years.
- Chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. These common health problems respond to optimizing nutrition and lifestyle factors. Improving immune function is vital when addressing these debilitating conditions.
- Cognitive decline and dementia. Several researchers, including Dale Bredesen (The End of Alzheimer’s) and Daniel Amen (Memory Rescue), have shown that cognitive decline can not only be avoided, but even reversed! The three most influential factors, amongst many, are high blood sugar levels, chronic inflammation, and toxins. At Body Evolution, we use a protocol designed to preserve and support cognitive function, and reverse decline, if caught in stages 1 or 2 of dementia.
- Biological aging. So much new information has been learned about the science of aging in the past five years. The standard American diet, along with a sedentary lifestyle and environmental toxins often accelerate aging and death. We provide the latest knowledge about how to extend your life and rewind your current biological age through biohacking technologies, nutraceuticals and lifestyle changes. At Body Evolution, we give you tools that support and guide you to live your longest health-span possible!
Body Evolution is a new kind of health center, a place where you can change and replace bad habits that are contributing to aging, with good habits that reverse the aging process. The Body Evolution programs guide you through the necessary lifestyle changes, enabling you to taper off pharmaceuticals, and erase chronic disease from your life!
I believe there are four elemental practices to a healthy lifestyle, and Body Evolution’s approach is to help you explore and optimize each of these elements, so you will achieve a reversal in your biological age and an increase in your health-span, freeing you to live the life you want on your terms.
The four elemental practices are:
Eat better. Nutrition is estimated as an 80% factor in causing most chronic diseases. Finding strategies to eat healthy, and minimize exposure to toxins are two of the most important factors you can modify for longevity.
Move better. Engaging in healthy, enjoyable physical activities that include mobility, strength, endurance and balance, and remaining consistent, is imperative for prolonging biological age and maintaining your independence.
Breath better. Good breathing practices allow you to balance the autonomic nervous system, because managing chronic stressors in your life is so important for promoting optimal hormone levels and restful sleep. Improving your breath capacity is a step to creating cardio-respiratory strength and full oxygenation of all your body tissues. Learning different breathing techniques gives you more strategies to deal with stress and to allow healing states to occur.
Think better. Strategic and purposeful brain fitness and meditation practices create optimized neuronal firing patterns, which leads to calm mental states and clear thinking. This clarity allows you to focus on an intention, and helps you connect to your meaning and higher purpose in life. Having a clear idea of what you are here to accomplish, also helps you to connect to others in your life and to positively influence all those in your social circles.
Body Evolution is a new kind of longevity center, one that is committed to exclusively promoting health, rather than treating diseases and conditions. Our aim is to prevent conditions and chronic pain from occurring, and to help you become less dependent on pharmaceuticals or procedures for symptom relief. Our programs can help you to naturally remove chronic conditions, pain and limitations from your life! The programs and services I offer are based on the latest scientific information and research findings on aging and epi-genetics. All four elemental practices are addressed in every person, to ensure your success!
