Healthy Aging

"I had one patient who was so severely arthritic that I could not bend his elbows enough to measure his blood pressure. He was one of my first patients. I gave him niacinamide for a week in divided doses, and then he could bend his arm. I took him off it and gave him a look-alike medicine (placebo). In a week he was back where he was before: his joints were stiff again." Dr. Kaufman (1978)

Introduction

Ref. 1 explains a treatment for arthritis. There are a number of medical issues associated with aging. For men, there are prostate issues. For both men & women, there are bone issues such as osteoporosis, although this issue is more infamous for women. For both sexs there are cardiovascular issues, which can mean life & death issues.

Cardiovascular Issues

Because heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US, I will deal with these issues first. Bone issues can often be dealth with by taking calcium supplements and vitamin D supplements. Cardiovascular diseases often require a low-sodium diet and a low-fat diet. Fruits are low in both sodium & fat. In addition they are high in potassium, which is considered heart-healthy.

There are certain signs and symptoms of a heart attack. You should know these signs and symptoms and call 911 if you have them. Shortness of breath is one symptom. Another is chest pain. If you are so dizzy that you can't stand up, that is another very serious symptom.

Signs and symptoms are not the same thing. You feel symptoms. Signs can be measured. Your vital signs are your temperature, your pulse, and your blood pressure. If your heart rate is over 100, you need to be seen. If your blood pressure is too high or too low, you need to be seen. If your heart rate is below 50, you need to be seen right away. You should call 911.

The Diet

A very good diet for cardiovascular health is the vegan diet. It is low in sodium, low in fat, and has no cholesterol. However, sugar, which is vegan, should be restricted. One of the reasons for this is that sugar can put on weight.

Information about the sodium content of foods is at Ref. 2. This same reference also has information about the potassium content as well.

Sodium & Potassium

Beware of Chinese foods, which often contain monosodium glutamate. Also beware of soy sauce, which is very high in sodium. The following foods are very high in sodium and should be avoided (2):

Anchovies, bacon, beef, bologna, bran, butter, Canadian bacon, clams, corned beef, dulse, green beans, green olives, ham, Irish moss, kelp, margarine, meat, milk, poultry, rose hips, salt, sardines, seafood, tomatoes. Supplements: Baking soda, monosodium glutamate, sodium ascorbate, sodium chloride.

Sodium in excess is bad for the kidneys as well as the heart.

Potassium is usually considered a good guy. It is antihypertensive, antispasmodic (2), and is thought to prevent strokes (2). The following foods are high in potassium (2):

Almonds, apricots, avocados, bananas, beef, bran, Brazil nuts, brewer's yeast, broccoli, brown rice, cabbage herb, cashews, celery herb, chard, citrus fruit, dairy foods, dates, figs, fish, fruit, garlic, grapefruit juice, green leafy vegetables, guava, legumes, lentils, meat, milk, molasses, nectarine, nuts, oranges, parsley, parsnips, peanuts, peaches, pork, potatoes, poultry, raisins, rice bran, sardines, seaweed, seeds, soybeans, spinach (fresh), squash, sunflower seeds, tomato juice, veal, walnuts, wheat bran, whole grains, yams. Supplements: potassium ascorbate, potassium aspartate, potassium benzoate, potassium carbonate, potassium chloride, potassium gluconate, potassium hydroxide.

Unfortunately, some of these foods, including seaweed, are also high in sodium and therefore should be avoided. The fruits are low in sodium, low in fat, high in fiber, and high in potassium. On top of that, they are also high in vitamin C, which was considered by Pauling & Rath to be good for the cardiovascular system. Thus fruits are almost the perfect foods. They are around 90% water, so you will not gain weight from them. However, if you are on fluid restriction, that could be a problem. Some people are on fluid restriction due to excess extracellular fluid.

Prostate Problems

There are many prostate problems, the worst being prostate cancer. However, benign prostate hyperplasia is also a very serious problem. It is seen most often in older men. What this means is that there is no cancer, but the prostate is enlarged to the point where there are symptoms.

In my previous articles I have concentrated on nutritional treatments for various diseases. Unfortunately I have not yet found a nutritional treatment that works well for BPH. There are drug treatments, but the drug treatments don't work that well either, unfortunately.

Surgery is an option. However, there is also a microwave treatment that can be done in your urologist's office.

Conclusions

There are a lot of health issues associated with aging. We have only scratched the surface here. A good book is "Healthy Aging" by Dr. Andrew Weil. Weil favors nutritional solutions to the problems of aging.

A good source on the low-sodium diet is Ref. 3. This is the website of the Heart Failure Society of America.

References

1. Saul AW. William Kaufman, B-3, and arthritis. J Orthomolecular Med, 2001. Vol. 16, No. 3, Third Quarter, 2001, p 189.
2. www.orthomolecular.org.

3. www.hfsa.org.