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A Unifying Hypothesis of Chronic Disease and Aging
By: William H. Bestermann, Jr., MD
Accelerated aging and disease in the skin are largely driven by excess oxidative particles generated by sun exposure and other environmental factors.
Look around. You can see differences in the rate of aging everywhere. Some 50-year-old people look 80 and some 80-year-old people look 50. It’s just the way they look. The 80-year-old people who look 50 are more active, have fewer chronic diseases, and their biological age in terms of cellular function is younger than their actual age in years. A compelling body of emerging scientific evidence can finally help us understand how this works.
You don’t have to age or die prematurely. You don’t have to develop chronic disease early. You can extend your healthy lifespan in ways that allow you to continue to contribute and function in the way that you want to-and you don’t have to eat sticks and grass to do it! But there are a few things that you must do. First of all, you should maintain your body just like you maintain your car.
Aging skin
Let’s get started by talking about something that you can see for yourself: your skin. Your skin is an organ where you can readily see the effects of aging. Unlike the skin of children that is smooth and tumor-free, older skin is…
