How to Reverse Aging: Is It Possible?

Aging is awesome - or at least it should be. Older people tend to have more time and freedom to do all those things they have always wanted to do. Unfortunately, in old age, our cells become more fragile and our bodies start to break down, limiting our freedom.

Once we reach about 30 years old, our bodies stop building and start degrading. While the idea of reversing aging to help us enjoy life longer used to be considered science fiction, many real advances have been made that may enable us to at least slow the aging process. "Age reversal" initially focused on our outer appearance (think anti-aging wrinkle cream and antioxidant serums), but new approaches are now targeting ways to slow aging from the inside, out.  

In fact, at least eight key hallmarks of aging have been identified that define precisely how our bodies degrade over the years, and efforts targeting these specific hallmarks are offering some the most promising approaches to slow the aging process. But more on that later. First, the basics. 

While we may only think of eating a balanced diet to take care of our bodies, there’s a bit more we can do.  A complete and balanced health and wellness plan consists of several practices.

• Mental wellness. Practicing some form of mental wellness is crucial in maintaining a balanced health and wellness stack.  Whether your life includes regular meditation, yoga practice, or time spent reading devotional literature, how you approach your mental health matters.  Your mental health can even have a surprising impact on your physical health.  The healthier we are mentally, the healthier we are physically, and vice versa.
• Physical wellness.  This is multi-faceted.  Your physical wellness depends on your food intake, your physical activity level, and regular check-ups by your healthcare professional.  This also includes taking care of your body from the inside out, and being proactive about the things we do which contribute to overall health and wellness.  For instance, taking a multivitamin. 

It can be relatively easy to fix the external signs of aging, but slowing down the internal aspects of aging involves the help of some good science.  Most often, we don’t think about slowing down the aging process until we feel the physical effects of aging.  Fatigue, loss of mental sharpness, not being able to catch up, and feeling overall just not as good as we once did are all common signs as we age. 

These feelings usually lead us on a wild goose chase for “quick fix” interventions that make us feel better, operate faster, stay sharper, and increase our lifespan.  Ultimately, we just want to age healthfully, but the array of options for “rejuvenation” and healthy aging can leave us feeling confused and wary of products that promise the moon and fall short of delivering any real quantifiable benefit to us. 

What Happens to Our Bodies As We Age?

To really explore our options for healthy biological aging, we need to know what happens to our bodies when we age so we can go directly to the source to slow the negative aspects of aging. 

We know the exterior signs of aging well -- laugh lines from decades of fun with friends, tiny creases around our eyes from smiling, maybe some dark spots on our skin from time spent in the sun.  But what’s happening on the inside of our bodies is fascinating.  It begins with our cells, including our skin cells, and a few key hallmarks of aging, including early cell death (called cellular senescence), dysfunctional mitochondria, and poor cell signaling.

As we age, every cell in our body begins to break down due to these hallmarks of aging, leaving us feeling less energized and placing us in a fragile state that is susceptible to aging-related diseases. 

Fragile, aging cells either begin to lose their function or they function abnormally. For example, with aging:

• Cells begin to experience breakdown. Cell membranes become flimsy and unable to support and protect the inside of the cell as they should. As a result, cells stop functioning well and die earlier than they should.
• Mitochondrial function decreases. The energy sources in our cells begin to slow down, decreasing our cells’ total energy output, and increasing cellular stress.
• Cells lose their homeostasis. Cellular homeostasis affects things like  immunity and proper metabolism.  As we age, our cells lose their ability to properly perform these functions, leaving us feeling weaker, sicker, and less energized.

Aging at the cellular level is the cause of age-related diseases and conditions, and our goal is to avoid age-related breakdown for as long as possible. While aging is inescapable, it doesn’t have to happen faster than it should. In fact, if we can slow the onset of aging-associated degradation, we can enjoy the gifts and freedoms of being older (and wiser).

Now that we know what happens to our bodies internally when we age, let’s find out what puts cellular aging on the fast track, so we can learn how to slow it down.

What Causes Us to Age Faster Than We Have To?

Aging is a combination of changes in our body and the impacts of how we care for ourselves.  If we do a good job caring for ourselves, that will be reflected in how our body ages.  If we do a poor job caring for ourselves, that too will be reflected. 

Body changes can be consistent.  These are the changes our body would normally undergo because we continue to live and get older.  There are definitely some behaviors, however, that can cause us to age faster. Aging research shows that these lifestyle changes include:

• Smoking
• Excessive use of alcohol and/or recreational drugs
• Sun exposure without adequate sunscreen
• High stress levels
• Poor diets that lack adequate protein and whole foods
• Lack of exercise or muscle mass
• Maintaining an unhealthy weight
• Diseases that are not treated and/or controlled (such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and high cholesterol)

The side effects of these lifestyle factors can’t be understated. If you’re checking off the list and convinced you’re doing everything you can to preserve your health and wellness, there’s more you can do.

What Can We Do to Age on Our Own Terms?

For the most part, we’ve been limited to diet, exercise, and maybe some multivitamins in terms of ensuring we are aging as healthfully as we possibly can. There’s now something else we can do to age on our own terms, and it might surprise you that it starts with a dietary fat.

As it turns out, not all saturated fats are bad and calories aren’t the end-all-be-all.  In fact, researchers discovered that an odd-chain saturated fat, called C15:0 (or pentadecanoic acid), can actually help support good overall health and wellness.*†  This simple saturated fat has been greatly decreased in our diets since dietary guidelines changed in the late 70s, instructing us to avoid all fat to keep our hearts healthy and avoid heart disease.

We now know that decreasing all saturated fats in our diets didn’t necessarily make us healthier.  In fact, we have been getting sicker with chronic, aging-associated conditions at younger and younger ages.  Our cells have continued to break down, and it appears that we have been aging faster, instead of slower. A growing body of science supports that C15:0 can help healthy aging at the cellular level, giving our cells a fighting chance  in a manner congruent with our normal, healthy lifestyle.*^† 

C15:0 helps support healthy cells by targeting key hallmarks of aging, including:*^†

• Helping keep cell membranes sturdy. C15:0 acts as armor for your cell membranes, which helps cells function properly and live longer.
• Supporting mitochondrial health. C15:0 bolsters and repairs mitochondrial function, keeping your cell’s energy factory working as it should.
• Balancing cellular homeostasis. C15:0 supports balanced cellular signaling and  function, which can help you maintain healthy immunity, as well as healthy glucose and cholesterol levels.

In summary,  C15:0 can help your aging cells fight against key hallmarks of aging so that you can stay healthy.*^†

While the good, odd-chain saturated fats (like C15:0) are mostly found in whole fat dairy products, these foods also contain much higher levels of bad, even-chain saturated fatty acids (like C16:0) that are associated with poorer health.

Fatty15 is the first and only pure, powder C15:0 supplement available to help you age on your own terms.*  You’ll find fatty15 is a great addition to your health and wellness stack.  It’s a helpful way to take the reigns of aging into your own hands and regain control of how and when your body ages.*^†

~ 

Getting older can be wonderful when one is not hindered by the degradation of aging. Give your cells the chance they need to stay healthy longer by maintaining your mental and physical health, and supplementing them with fatty15.*^†

Sources:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617306639

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-387-75847-3_2

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29868913/