It has been almost 7 years since I put up this website, and I find that today, the 6 Critical Keys to Senior Fitness still remain the most important aspects of living which need to be understood and attended to for maintaining excellent health into advanced age. We need to be tuned in to the current science related to the processes of aging and what works to slow them, and generally these fall into the areas of Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep/Recovery, Supplements and our Thinking and Attitudes. In each of these areas our knowledge and understanding has grown; some things we thought wise turned out to be not so wise, while others we thought bad turned out to be better than we supposed. A good example is coffee – thought to be a health negative but turns out to be a terrific source of antioxidant polyphenols, and studies show that every cup up to 6/day significantly decreases all-cause death rates. Really! Read Here

Lately folks have been throwing up to me the recent very negative article in Consumer Reports about Supplements (Read it here). My thinking is that Consumer Reports should publish a similar article about the dangers of our food industry’s dangerous ‘food products’ – drinks and snacks and packaged meals that are loaded with health-destroying non-nutrient ingredients, but sold to us as things that make our lives soooo much better that we can’t live well without them. More and more evidence comes out daily that sugar and carbs that rapidly turn to sugar are the leading enemy of good health, leading to the three big killers – heart disease, diabetes and cancer – the evidence is very strong, but we keep being told that eggs are dangerous and Frosted Flakes are “Greaaaat”. What a crock! By the way, here is a good rebuttal and critique of the CR article should you care to read the other side of the argument.

I take about 30 different supplements, some off & on, to accomplish different purposes, but mostly to make sure I am getting the nutrients I know are not in what I eat, and to address specific things that come on with the aging process. I wish I had had the knowledge to anticipate these changes when younger to delay their onset, but I have been rather successful at adding the right supplements to minimize the damage as these degenerations have reared their heads with time. Example: I developed chondromalacia in both knees at 33. I studied the problem and added supplements that build cartilage and stop joint inflammation, and have kept the problem at bay for 40 years – I can still do squats with over 225 lb and my knees will heal up and not punish me in response. There is no drug on the market still that will do that without shutting down the immune system – not something I want to let happen.

Another example: I developed blocked coronary arteries, requiring a 4x bypass. I never saw it coming; I figured with eating right (remember, we were told to eat margarine instead of butter, use fructose as a sweetener that wouldn’t elevate blood sugar, avoid real eggs and many other examples of very bad nutritional guidance) and exercise were the magic keys to avoiding heart disease. Only after my operation did I get investigative about the lies we were being fed regarding nutrition and returned to real foods as I discuss in our Nutrition Category, a must-read if you want a firm understanding of how to eat to optimize health. Eleven years after my operation my arteries (and grafts) are still clear and my C-Reactive Protein (CRP) reading is below 0.1, meaning near-zero vascular inflammation. This is because the supplements I take and the food I eat are aimed at lowering inflammation throughout the body, including the arterial system. If you want to know more Read what I use here.