Successful ageing is like fence maintenance. As we age some of the slats in our fences break, become wobbly or fall over.
Traditionally, this is when we seek help. We go to doctors, who then dash around the outside, fixing, patching and trying to stop the whole structure from sagging.
But the latest approach to successful ageing is different. Rather
than waiting for damage to declare itself, it urges us to keep check
ing the fence for vulnerable spots and to strengthen it from the
inside. ’
There are several ways of doing this, and any improvement in diet and exercise will help, but the most recent notion is to keep control of the bodily systems that implement ageing.
Once the body has received the signal to begin ageing, the process is put into effect largely by the endocrine system. It is almost as if an order is received for a murder, and the endocrine system is the hitman.
Through carefully monitoring and modifying six hormones in this system, the fence can be strengthened and ageing partially held at bay. These hormones are mighty powerful. They bring on the major transformation from childhood to adolescence from which two or three decades of adult vigour follow. But then, from about the age of 40, they start turning down.
From mid-life onwards, there is a subtle decline in six essential hormone systems: insulin, oestrogen, testosterone, DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), thyroxin and growth hormone. These subtle declines set in motion the adverse metabolic changes of later life. Once begun, this ageing process can be amplified by lifestyle factors such as inactivity, poor nutrition, cause of mental turmoil, rising blood pressure, high cholesterol and declining cardiac function.
As new century turned, anti-ageing clinics begun popping up in Australia. Just as in the last decade impotence clinics proliferated across the country, so in the next decade it is predicted there will be a rash of anti-ageing clinics.
One Sydney clinic based strictly on orthodox medicine says a lot of what it does is, in clinical terms, old hat. But its approach is different in that it focuses on wellness, not illness. With great caution, it also uses some therapies that are theoretically sound but have not yet stood the full test of time.
Ageing is a complex process. It is a steady loss in functional reserve that slowly reduces what we can accomplish. We continue to go down gradually until a significant stress, such as a disease, comes along and one of our systems fails.
The aim of anti-ageing medicine is to help people retain function as long as possible and to compress morbidity into the very end of life. We have partial insight into how we can achieve this.
Just look at societies outside the affluent West. Many people there die young, but those who do not do so retain their function deep into old age. We see it on television every week, as another tragic group of refugees flees its home. Among these refugees are fit elderly people walking along, carrying bundles, enduring tremendous hardship and looking well, if exhausted.
The Sydney clinic covers all the traditional areas of health and then focuses on the endocrine system.
The first hormone to be tested is insulin. The body’s ongoing ability to burn sugar is pivotal in determining how it will age.
Oestrogen and testosterone are next. At high levels, these hormones drive sexual differentiation, but at low levels they have other vital metabolic roles. In both sexes, small amounts of oestrogen are crucial for bone remodelling and for nurturing brain cells; small quantities are also essential for male fertility.
At low levels, testosterone is important for brain development, muscle and bone strength, fat control, emotional stability and libido.
The fourth hormone tested at this clinic is DHEA, which has been called the mother of all hormones. It is the raw material for the manufacture of oestrogen and testosterone, and since it has fallen into lay hands, extravagant claims have been made for its remedial effects. It has, however, been established that it is safe when administered in correct doses, and supplementation in mid-life is said to assist in maintaining bone and muscle mass, promoting a feeling of wellbeing and lifting female libido.
The fifth hormone tested for is from the thyroid. While 5 per cent of older women are known to have thyroxin deficiency and need a full replacement, a much larger proportion of ageing men and women suffer relative thyroid inefficiency and may benefit from judicious thyroxin supplementation. This can help counter listlessness, dry, puffy skin, brittle hair and middle-age spread.
The final test is for growth hormone, which triggers the growth of fresh cells in bones, organs and muscles. It plays a large part in the hormonal abundance that creates that ‘bloom of youth’ and declines rapidly with age. At 60, people have less than a quarter of the growth hormone they had at 20. It is effective in converting fat to muscle and small studies have shown it can take 10 years off a body.
The primary rationale of this endocrine approach is not so much to reclaim youth as it is to forestall age-related diseases.
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