Wendy Bazilian, DRPH, MA, RD, Steven Pratt, MD, Kathy Matthews
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 Here are some of the powerful benefits you'll enjoy as strength training will help you:
Maintain and increase your muscle mass as well as your overall strength. Most people don't realize that they begin to lose muscle mass around age 30 if they aren't actively engaging the muscles on a regular basis. By the time they reach their late thirties or early forties, most people are losing muscle mass at a rate of about a quarter pound a year. Most people also think that muscle weakness is an inevitable result of age while in fact it is in large part a result of disuse. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 So to pick up a set of dumbbells two or three days a week and do a few exercises helps maintain that bone density, as well as keep the muscle mass on.
I wrote a book a few years ago called "Lift Weights to Lose Weight," and in the book I said if I had to stop doing one thing in life -- whether I had to give up my yoga or had to give up my cardio -- as you start to age, the one thing that you want to maintain is a little strength training because again, it keeps on muscle mass and as we age, if we start to lose that muscle mass, our metabolism starts slowing down. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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 Testosterone and its precursors and derivatives are anabolic steroids that promote the buildup of muscle mass. Testosterone is used to treat decreased libido and to increase muscle mass in athletes. Taking testosterone supplements, however, can actually depress libido, and shuts off sperm production, causing infertility that can take months to recover from. In some cases recovery does not occur. Testosterone also leads to psychiatric side effects, including suicide. Other side effects are hypertension, tendon ruptures, liver tumors, and development of male characteristics in women. |
Jack Challem
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 Some nutrients can help to maintain normal muscle mass, which in turn aids in burning blood sugar.
• A few supplements can dampen appetite, leading to less eating and subsequent weight loss.
• Many people have above-average requirements for vitamins and minerals, for reasons relating to genetics or stress, and supplements can help to satisfy these greater needs.
How Should You Start Supplementing?
We recommend that you start with the basics—namely, multivitamin and multimineral supplements—to reduce your risk of having nutrient deficiencies. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Low testosterone has long been associated with decreased sex drive, but researchers are now discovering that low testosterone levels can cause numerous other negative health effects (in addition to those already mentioned), including reduced fertility, loss of body hair, reduced muscle mass and strength, problems sleeping and an increased risk of depression.
In addition, men who have several chronic conditions are also much more likely to have low testosterone levels. |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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 Muscles Resistance training helps maintain lean Without building muscle, you're more muscle mass, which decreases as likely to gain weight (because muscle you age. helps speed metabolism), as well as be at increased risk for osteoporosis.
Walking and any other types of movement stimulate the formation of synovial fluid, which keeps your joints lubed.
In people with mild forms of lactose intolerance, having a little lactose can work to your advantage. |
| As you'll learn in future chapters, you need your growth hormone to help combat some aging-related diseases and conditions and to build lean muscle mass.
ž If you keep the axis activated for too long, it can develop an exhausted response—and that produces a wiped-out feeling when stress does come.
So what role does our Major Ager of stem cell slowdown play in all of this? Well, the stem cells' regenerative properties are crucial here because of the damage that our environment and the resultant stress can do. Stress is all about adapting to the challenges of life. |
| By the way, you also lose testosterone when you go through menopause, which means you lose muscle mass. Combined with inactivity, that's the true culprit in perimenopausal weight gain.
The Risks and Rewards of Estrogen Therapy
The reason why hormone therapy is controversial is this: The early studies of women who replaced estrogen were epidemiological—just collections of information on everyone who could be found. |
| In Favor: Besides improvements in the areas most associated with testosterone (libido, muscle mass, bone strength), testosterone therapy has been shown to decrease levels of lousy LDL cholesterol and improve insulin sensitivity, so your chance of suffering diabetes decreases.
The Knock? The main criticism of testosterone therapy has been its reported links to prostate cancer. |
| This muscle building program, which uses your own body as your gym, will help you build and maintain lean muscle mass, keep your weight under control, and give your muscles strength and flexibility to keep you mobile, limber, and young.
Three Times a Week
Do either the Chi-gong Workout or meditation-relaxation. Both will help balance your body and mind. Depending on your tastes, you can mix and match as you like. We prefer two days or more of chi-gong and at least a day of meditation-relaxation. |
| Because creatinine is released at a constant rate (depending on muscle mass), its blood level is a good indicator of kidney function. It generally creeps up as you age. Creatinine levels can increase temporarily as a result of muscle injury.
Creatine kinase, total: An enzyme significantly elevated when skeletal or heart muscles are damaged.
Ferritin: Not a small rodent, but a sensitive indicator of the body's iron stores.
Gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT): a liver enzyme elevated in conditions involving liver damage. |
Hyla Cass, M.D.
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 Omega-3 fatty acids (1,000-3,000 mg of combined EPA and DHA per day) may help chemo be more effective, while helping to prevent extreme loss of muscle mass known as cachexia.
Medicinal mushrooms. Cancer patients may also wish to investigate medicinal mushrooms (such types as reishi, shiitake, cordyceps, maitake, agaracus, and coriolus) as immune-boosting companions to chemotherapy. These medicinal mushrooms are sources of antitumor and immunity-modulating polysaccharides (a type of carbohydrate) that have been extensively researched. |
Jack Challem
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| Short of regular exercise, vitamin D supplements may be one of the best ways to maintain normal muscle mass. Your body needs vitamin D to make protein and to produce muscle cells. Taking vitamin D supplements won't give you the muscles of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but they will help you hold your own against the age-related decline in muscle tissue, which increases your susceptibility to developing prediabetes. Vitamin D will also reduce your risk of falling, which can lead to broken bones. Take 1,000 to 2,000 IU daily.
• Leucine. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Eating three 4-ounce servings of high-protein foods every day helps suppress appetite and maintain muscle mass. Choose fish, egg whites, poultry and plain, fat-free yogurt. Meat lovers can eat red meat twice a week but should marinate beef using cherry or pomegranate concentrate (this reduces the inflammatory chemical compounds that are produced during cooking). You can have 1 or 2 tablespoons each day of nuts or seeds (especially flaxseed, walnuts and almonds). During this stage, get 25 g of fiber, primarily from vegetables. |
Mike Adams
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 Strength training builds new muscle mass that increases your resting metabolic rate and burns calories even when you're not exercising. If you been overweight or are now, you already have impressive muscles supporting your skeletal system and body weight. If you don't train those muscles while you lose weight, you will actually lose muscle mass along with your body fat and end up as a slimmer, but weaker human being. With strength training combined with a smart diet, you end up being both thin and fit. |
Jack Challem
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 Exercise also increases muscle mass, which improves blood sugar and insulin levels.
Get a pet. It's often difficult for depressed people to make new friends and expand their social support networks. Yet pets are accepting of people who are depressed, seriously ill with cancer, or healthy. Having a pet helps you to create a bond with another living creature, and the benefits are often described as "miraculous." Dogs especially are social creatures and, when treated with kindness, return loyalty, affection, and playfulness. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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| Testosterone is used to treat decreased libido and to increase muscle mass in athletes. Taking testosterone supplements, however, can actually depress libido, and shuts off sperm production, causing infertility that can take months to recover from. In some cases recovery does not occur. Testosterone also leads to psychiatric side effects, including suicide. Other side effects are hypertension, tendon ruptures, liver tumors, and development of male characteristics in women. |
| DHEA, since it is a precursor of testosterone, is being used by athletes to build muscle mass, but it is not very effective for this purpose. DHEA is also promoted for the prevention of normal aging. Studies have not shown that DHEA prevents the changes in body mass and chemistry that occur with normal aging. DHEA does not have effects on measures of body composition affected by aging, like muscle strength, insulin sensitivity, and oxygen consumption or on quality of life.22 Studies have shown that DHEA improves feelings of well-being and is useful in the treatment of depression. |
| TESTOSTERONE
Several anabolic steroids are used by bodybuilders to artificially build up muscle mass. These drugs are sold over the counter as "pro-hormone" supplements. They are, however, converted into androgens in the body and should be considered such since they have potentially dangerous side effects. The U.S. is the only country in the world where these compounds are not regulated and controlled. These supplements include oxymethalone, stanozolol, oxandrolone, nandrolone phenproprionate, and nandrolone decanoate, which are all derived from testosterone. |
| Steroids are produced by the body and promote secondary sexual characteristics and reproduction (androgenic effects) as well as increases in muscle mass (anabolic). They are often marketed as antiaging pills or as energy and libido enhancers. All steroids are synthesized from cholesterol. Cholesterol is converted to pregnenolone, progesterone, dehy-droepiandrosterone (DHEA), androstenedione, and testosterone. Progesterone is combined with estrogen for hormone replacement therapy to treat hot flashes and depression in postmenopausal women. |
| The body is in effect responding to the message that more bone strength is needed, much as it does when it increases muscle mass and tone with exercise. And the good news is that it builds up bone strength more effectively than bisphosphonates. Rather than randomly laying down calcium in parts of the bone that may not greatly enhance the strength of the bone, as bisphosphonates do, this type of exercise results in a laying down of calcium in the parts of the bone that matter. And what's more, the effects don't wear off after five years. |
Ron Garner
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 Men can begin to notice the development of female-like breasts, loss of muscle mass and strength, and prostate problems indicated by a frequent need to urinate, difficulty in starting the urine stream, and a feeling of being unable to completely empty the bladder. If left unaddressed, this condition can lead to prostate cancer in men.
Natural progesterone can be of assistance in bringing hormone ratios back into line. It is a key factor in the creation of other hormones, as it performs many functions in both female and male human bodies. |
| As this happens, symptoms can develop such as lack of energy and stamina, inability to concentrate, depression, loss of muscle mass and strength, increased fat especially around the mid-section and breasts, increased difficulty in reading fine print, decreased libido, and erectile difficulties, to name a few.23 Low testosterone levels are also associated with heart problems24 and osteoporosis.25
Increased estrogen levels can be due to nutritional factors, stress, and chemicals in our foods and environment that act as synthetic estrogens in the human body. |
Jack Challem
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| If you have been consistently more physically active, this may reflect an increase in muscle mass, which weighs more than fat. We recommend that you use a tape measure to check the size of your belly and your waist-hip ratio.
Afterword
We all make choices as we go through life, but the act of making choices presumes that we know that more than one option exists: to go fast or slow, to be good or bad, or to eat healthy or unhealthy foods.
Unfortunately, when it comes to nutrition, many of us have been unaware of, have forgotten, or have been blinded to all of our options. |
James F. Balch, M.D. and Mark Stengler, N.D.
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 Creatine is used by the body's muscle cells to create energy and maintain muscle mass.
Indications: Athletic support
Congestive heart failure Maintaining muscle mass in seniors
Precautions: Diarrhea and muscle cramping are the most common side effects. People with liver or kidney disease should check with their doctors before using creatine.
Dosage: Take 2 to 5 grams daily. Cysteine
Description: Cysteine is a nonessential amino acid that contains the mineral sulfur. It is a component of the antioxidant glutathione and is required for the synthesis of the amino acid taurine. |
Dr. Steven R. Gundry
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 The more muscle mass you carry into old age, the more you must still be hefting food back to camp or fighting saber-toothed tigers, and therefore valuable to the tribe and your collective gene pool. In contrast, the more you behave like a struggling animal, con-
Timing Ia Everything
If you walk 10 or 20 or more minutes after a meal, you'll drop pounds faster than if you walk the same distance before the meal. Why is this? Walk after a meal, and your monitoring system senses that you're heading for the next campsite or hunting ground. |
| Likewise, as your muscle mass decreases with age, if you continue to eat like a teenager but are inactive, your genes assume that you're taking more than your share without contributing to defense or food collection. In either case, your behavior unwittingly activates killer genes.
A"RUSTY"BODY
Wild animals low in the pecking order have to work harder to get food and usually settle for the worst parts of the kill or the least nutritive leaves. Both factors increase the level of oxidative stress on the system, just as smoking does to humans. |
| This energy efficiency is exactly what your genetic autopilot wants when it sends out signals to reduce muscle mass as you age so you'll eat less. The lower your metabolic rate, the less food you need to eat. Because this means you're not a threat to the rest of the tribe, you get to stick around. Remember those hibernating ground squirrels, with their low metabolic rate, that live five times longer than nonhibernators?5 Still having trouble with this concept? In an energy crisis, when gas shortages are imminent, which car sits in the garage-the Toyota Prius or the Hummer? |
Jack Challem
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| Preserving your muscle mass becomes especially important after age forty, when age-related muscle loss accelerates. Physical activity also helps to make and maintain muscle.
• Protein does not increase the risk of developing heart disease. In a major study, researchers at Harvard University found that high-protein, low-carb diets did not increase the risk of developing heart disease, compared with diets containing large amounts of carbohydrates. When the subjects included a fair amount of vegetable protein in their diets, their risk of developing heart disease actually went down. |
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