Powerful Anti-Aging Secrets!

Many people have searched the world over looking for the fountain of youth. We all long for eternal beauty, free of wrinkles or the sagging of age. To answer this yearning, the market has been bombarded with creams and serums boasting the secrets of anti aging. Anti aging has become a market in itself and we have answered the call, purchasing our fill or at least the fill of our pocketbooks! However, perhaps the answer does not lie in a miracle lotion or cream, but in the life we live before we reach our advanced years.
Do not misunderstand, I am not suggesting we will forever be free from wrinkles if we live properly – at some point our skin will sag and we will show our age. Instead, I am suggesting our society is always looking for the quick fixes. To lose weight, we look for a miracle pill instead of eating right and exercising. On the same note, instead of eating properly and caring for ourselves, we look for the easy way out – something to rub on our faces to remove the evidence of the life we have chosen to live, or even worse, surgery to cut away and stretch out the skin we have chosen to disregard for so long.
On the other hand, why don’t we accept the creases that line our faces as trophies we have earned with the years we have endured on this Earth? Why is the exploration in search of anti aging so much more popular than the search for self-acceptance?
At the end of the day, when our eyes close for the final time, will it matter how many wrinkles line our faces, how tight our stomach muscles are, or the amount of gray in our hair? Will the pursuit of anti aging be a factor when age ceases to exist? Of course not. Perhaps we should spend our lives pursuing something that may actually proceeds us in death, instead of that which fades with lost memories.

How Can Fat Be Essential?

Did you know that some fats are essential to the body? Yes, there are some fats that our body cannot produce which means that we must get them from our food. Perhaps you’ve heard of omega-3 fatty acids and omega-6 fatty acids. These are both considered essential and must be supplied by the foods we eat.

What do they do? Well, the omega-3 fatty acid, for example is used for the production of healthy cell membranes and for the production of a class of hormones called prostaglandins. You know how aspirin and acetominophen are anti-inflammatories? So are the prostaglandins that our bodies produce from omega-3 fatty acids.

Now, we need the omega-3’s and the omega-6’s to be in the proper combination to be most effective to us. Empirical evidence shows that the proper ratio is about 4:1 between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. What do you suppose our average diet gives us? About a 20:1 and up to a 40:1 ratio; not even close to the optimal ratio.

Why is the balance so out of whack? Well, our normal diets are rich in omega-6 fatty acids. We get them from meats, dairy products, and processed foods. We eat a lot of those foods on average. We get omega-3 fatty acids from certain vegetable oils such as flaxseed, canola, and soybean. And we get omega-3 fatty acids from cold-water fish such as mackerel, sardines, salmon, and tuna.

Eat more fish! You’ve heard that said before, and now you know why.

Especially the salmon. It is especially rich in the beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. Salmon , or any of the other omega-3 rich fish (but what tastes better than good salmon?) should be consumed at least once a week.

In order to get the omega-6 vs. omega-3 ratio in order, decrease your consumption of the saturated fat from meats and dairy products and increase your consumption of fish such as salmon.

Do you know how else you will benefit from increased consumption of omega-3 fatty acids? Your cholesterol level will improve. You see, the essential omega-3 fatty acids have the ability to help decrease your total cholesterol and your LDL cholesterol level. The LDL cholesterol is the so-called bad cholesterol. So you will improve your cholesterol levels by adding a better balance of omega-3 fatty acids to your diet.

Not surprisingly, the omega-3 fatty acids can be heart healthy. Several diseases show improvement when patients increase their intake of these essential fats. Check out Dr. Ray Strand’s important book for citings of clinical studies of omega-3. The book is titled, “What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You.” It’s a wonderful book and should be a standard reference volume in your nutrition library.

Eat well, take appropriate supplements, and stay healthy.