YOU: The Most Important Choices For Making Yourself Younger: #7-10 DHA, Calcium and Magnesium, and Aspirin
Co-Author of 4 #1 NY Times Bestsellers including: YOU Staying Young. The Owner’s Manual For Extending Your Warranty (Free Press) and YOU: BEING Beautiful.
The Owner’s Manual to Outer and Inner Beauty
Our basic premise is that your body is amazing: You get a do over: it doesn’t take that long, and isn’t that hard if you know what to do. In these notes we give you a short course in what to do so it becomes easy for you and then to teach others. We want you to know how much control you have over your quality and length of life.
Last month we added steps 5-10 of our most important tips to Staying Young,
but only had space to discuss 5 and 6. Here we’d like to discuss # 7-10.
1. Understand you get a do over and it’s not that hard and it doesn’t take that long if you know what to do.
2. Start with walking.
3. Recruit a buddy and call daily.
4. Learn how to make YOU-turns
5-10, Pop these Pills:
5, one half a multivitamin morning and night;
6, vitamin D 500 IU,
7, Calcium 600mg, and 8, magnesium 200mg, morning and night;
9, DHA –omegaa-3 600mg a day;
10, 162.5 mg of aspirin.
As to why we recommend calcium twice a day for men and three times a day for women –and starting before age 20 by the way—you probably know that calcium is good for your bones, but more and more research is showing that there’s a link between calcium and weight loss. It seems that 1,000 milligrams a day of calcium help both reduce fat intake and increase fat metabolism—a double whammy in the world of weight loss. you can get the calcium (which is absorbed better through the liquid form of milk, called the whey, than the solid part, the curd) through the usual suspects such as low-fat dairy products or supplements. But don’t rule out the stealth sources either, such as spinach, sardines, beans, sesame seeds, and oranges. The magnesium is needed to prevent constipation from the calcium.
DHA Omega-3 fatty acids are the kinds of fat found in fish, like salmon and mahi-mahi. These healthy fats slow cognitive decline in people who are at risk, help keep your arteries clear and improve the function of your
Please Turn Over…
message-sending neurotransmitters. These fatty acids are also the handymen of your arterial system, because they can do a whole lot of fixing up. They reduce triglyceride levels in your blood (high triglycerides are a big cause of plaque buildup), They help increase healthy cholesterol numbers to clear the arteries by increasing the amount and the size of your healthy HDL cholesterol.
And they help reduce the risk of arrhythmia after a heart attack. In addition, they decrease blood pressure. Aim for 13 ounces of fish a week, or, if you prefer supplements, take 2 grams of fish oil a day (metabolically distilled), or DHA from algae (where fish get their omega-3s), or an ounce of walnuts a day. DHA is the omega-3 that seems best for the brain.
Further, research suggests that omega-6 fatty acids (found in cereals, some nuts, whole grains, and vegetable oils) can be harmful to us if we don’t have the proper ratio of omega-3 (found in oily fish, walnuts, certain algae, and flax) to counterbalance those fats and provide a protective effect against heart disease. The ideal ratio: Omega-3s, especially DHA, should be one-quarter of omega-6s.
Taking 162 milligrams of aspirin a day (that’s two baby aspirins or half a regular, taken with a half glass of warm water before and after) can decrease the risk of getting colon cancer, esophageal cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, and breast cancer—all by 40 percent. And it probably decreases the risk of stomach, throat, and several other cancers as well. And aspirin reduces inflammation in your arteries: and what’s good for your heart and arteries is also good for your brain, sexual function, and skin (prevents wrinkles). We know aspirin has side effects, but the benefits—a younger arterial system and a decreased risk of at least four big cancers—often outweigh the risks. So if you are typical and over 35 and a man or over 40 and a woman, discuss with your doc whether it’s worth it to you.
Mehmet and I have a new book released on November 11th, 2008, entitled YOU: Being Beautiful: The Owner’s Manual to Outer and Inner Beauty. Let’s dispel three myths now:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Translation: Just as we all have different taste buds, we all have different beauty buds, as well. Some like blond; some like brown. Some like their men to wear boxers; others prefer leopard-print G-strings.
Don’t judge a book by its cover. Translation: Don’t make assumptions or judgments about people just because they have big boobs, no hair, or a belt that’s longer than a circus tightrope.
Beauty is only skin deep. Translation: Stop linking outer beauty with the inner kind. They’re as separate as mashed potatoes and maple syrup.
The logic behind all these myths argues that external beauty is unimportant, most likely misleading, and at best relevant only until more useful information becomes available. But we have three words for these three clichés: Wrong, wrong, wrong. Scientific study after study shows that these popular principles are more myth than reality. In fact, research shows that human beings have evolved universal standards of beauty, both within and across cultures. Research also shows that attractive people are judged more positively and assumed to be more competent and more exciting than unattractive people—even when there’s other information available about them. Research also indicates that external beauty is linked to personality and behavior.
Though there are biological and social influences on beauty, it does seem that being deemed attractive creates a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy that reinforces and internalizes certain behaviors and self-concepts. And guess what? Most of these crucial factors are ones you can change for the better. You’ll have to either buy the book (we receive a royalty, so we hope you do that) or wait for more columns to see why we believe “beauty doesn’t as much reflect our vanity as much as it does our humanity and our health.” And how to enhance your outer and inner beauty.
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