Hildreth: Secrets to aging gracefully

Dr. LeWall J. Hildreth

Hello out there, nice people. Did someone today tell you how special you are? Did anyone tell you how important you make them feel? Just seeing you made them smile a bit, in fact, it made them glad.

That feeling will last all day and make all of the internal organs including your digestive system be more relaxed and work better.

This leads me into a part of this week’s discussion. The topic for this week is similar to a lecture that I am looking forward to giving next week. A part of aging gracefully is cellular nutrition.

I am sure that some of you remember while in grade school, the teacher asked you if you would memorize and recite a poem or read something special in front of the class at Christmastime.

Do you remember how your stomach got tied up into a knot? For some of us that knot never went away or just kept coming and going. Our relationship with other people play a big role and the cellular nutrition can suffer or improve.

Now, back to now instead of “back to the future.” Appreciating and learning about what might be some day, such as little robots the size of red cells that can move chromosomes from here to there is interesting, but we are living in the now, and a comfortable enjoyable now must relate to the now.

Important secrets of aging gracefully can be grouped and expanded from three important needs. Those three are:

First, and possibly most important is spiritual, the desire to live and share well into your 90s and possibly beyond. Japan has registered close to 40,000 centurions.

Second, a good understanding of the term “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” We see a lot of people that have the desire but not the understanding or know how to proceed. Every cell of the body requires use. If not used it will atrophy, wither away and die.

The third and last of the big three is cellular fuel or nutrition, an ample supply of balanced nutritional fuel to keep each cell alive and active is essential.

History has repeatedly shown us that to be stable, we require emotionally and spiritually an attachment to a higher power.

Every nation of people through the ages has searched for and latched on to a power or a supremacy that was or is greater than themselves. There is an inherent need there and the results will reflect through health and peaceful longevity.

Doing or relating with others as you would have them do and share with you aids in supporting the spiritual need. This “if you don’t use it, you lose it” is very real, that means every cell of the body.

Through the ages, our physical and mental aspects of our body have changed. Through generations as our environment changed from a physical-labor intensity society to a more industrialized mentally focused society, our bodies and the size of our brain have changed. Our bodies are heavier, muscle to fat ratio has changed considerably. In other words, muscle cells have atrophied, and fat cells have increased for comfort in a less physical society.

Because of anti-gravity surroundings our astronauts have found that the longer they are in space the more bone loss from the skeletal system will be experienced. In other words, if less skeletal strength is needed because of less gravity, the bone cells atrophy and die.

There have been different settings such as in children that have been neglected or certain prison settings where individuals have been deprived of learning and mentally sharing with others experience brain cell atrophy and digression of brain growth. We can apply these observations to every organ of our body. Just pick and choose which organs in your body do you want to save and which organs you don’t care if they atrophy and die.

The last of the big three is cellular nutrition or fuel. Water is probably the single most important. Drinking adequate water becomes more and more important with age. The single most consistent biological marker of aging is intracellular dehydration.

One big contributing factor among the elderly is the loss of thirst sensitivity. As we age the body holds less cellular water. Fresh moist skin, clear eyes and shiny hair are traits resulting from proper fluid intake. Looking good for one’s age has a lot to do with eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables with very few processed foods, sugar and salt, and six to eight glasses of water per day. High-fiber intake also is very important consistently. This means including extra fiber whether there is a constipation problem or not.

Extra proteolytic enzyme with each meal I believe is necessary for all of us as we age. We produce less digestive enzymes as we age and zero enzyme intake with cooked, microwaved, pasteurized, or processed foods.

I am not sure how much digestive enzyme activity we get from most of the-over-the-counter proteolytic enzyme capsules, powders, or pills. In researching this, there is one tested that probably is more comforting to me that any others. At least I am going to test it further.

I am confident that we all need more enzyme support for digestion and assimilation, particularly as we age. Every item that goes into the mouth requires enzyme action all along the way to be utilized by the mitochondria within the cell. The probiotic I am referring to is called Bacillus coagulans. Take all of this seriously if you want to age gracefully and without a lot of medical expense.

Contact Dr. LeWall J. Hildreth at 625-1101 or cahcgv@yahoo.com Dr. Hildreth specializes in hormone balancing and musculoskeletal degeneration.