Barbara Ebel M. D. - Younger Next Decade: After Fifty, the Transitional Decade, and what You Need to Know

Younger NextDecade

After Fifty, theTransitional Decade,

and what You Need toKnow

by

Barbara Ebel,M.D.

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Younger Next Decade:

After Fifty, the Transitional Decade,and what You Need to Know

Copyright 2011 by BarbaraEbel

This book is also available in a printedition.

License Notes

All rights reserved. No part of thisbook may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic withoutwritten permission of both author and publisher, except in the caseof brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews.Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal andis punishable by law. Thank you for respecting the author'swork.

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YOUNGER NEXTDECADE

AFTER FIFTY, THETRANSITIONAL DECADE,

AND WHAT YOU NEED TOKNOW

Chapter 1:Introduction

Every book begins with pageone. You and I are going to start fresh, especially if you just hadyour fiftieth birthday or if that bigone is looming just ahead. Please considerthat your fiftieth birthday is a mile marker in your life and thatthe next ten years - what well call your transitional decade -will fundamentally set the stage for how you decide to live therest of your life.

Also, introductions are in order.Instead of you getting to the end of this book and reading aboutthe author, Im giving you a short scoop from the get-go. First,Im an author and have multiple published works, including multiplegenres. But heres the thing - not only am I a physician - but Itry whole-heartedly every day to practice what I preach byincorporating what Im about to tell you into my lifestyle. I, too,am only human, and you can strive to be perfect, but dont comedown on yourself too hard if you cant live up to ideal lifestylestandards all of the time. What Im going to do here is to give yousome insight into the why and how of living smarter after fifty.After all, we are simply young people born earlier.

Second, since concisenessis a big thing with me, I am going to try my best to deliver adviceas succinctly as possible. Since were multitasking and leadingbusy lives, time is a precious commodity. Heck, actually, we needto talk about that later. My goal is also to make this a fun read. Its a turn-offto be preached to. I want to supplement what your family doctor mayor may not tell you and I want to add to all the other informationyou read, believe, dont believe, fail to follow, or are asstubborn as a mule to incorporate into your life. I hope to giveyou some brand new ideas. Were going to make this enjoyable, weregoing to do it together, and Im going to deliver some freshapproaches.

Third, if youre clickingpage turns on an eBook reader you may not see this; if you have apaperback, then you may have noticed it already. There will be morethan one chapter titled Spirit. No. It has nothing to do with spirituality orreligion, although perhaps you could argue that underneath myphilosophy, spiritualism has to do with its foundation. Whether youare religious or not, I will lay the cards on the table and tellyou I have no right or background to give you a spiel withreligious overtones. My Spirit chapters have to do with a feeling and a love forbeing alive.

If youve hit that milestone birthdayand are becoming increasingly unhappy when you look in the mirror,heres a fact that the infomercials and the big cosmetic companieswont be too pleased about. Those crows feet popping out aroundyour eyes, and those baby vertical lines sprouting from your upperlip, and those puffy lower lids arent erased by the contents in abottle.

However, there are good products outthere that help subdue those budding features but dont depleteyour bank account for them. You can find appropriately pricedproducts which have the latest dermatological ingredients forrevitalizing and moisturizing your skin, including scrubs andexfoliants. I went on a medical mission several years ago to Mexicoand, lo and behold, was I surprised to find Retin-A tubes ofvarying concentrations - non-prescription and dirt cheap - on drugstore shelves. Many of you know that Retin-A is the ingredient ofsome high-end commercial products advertised to slow skin aging. Ibought a bag of tubes and Im still occasionally smearing a lightfilm on at bedtime.

So, yes, there are some products thathelp your skin look refreshed, but as we all know, or should know,the Hollywood women who look so good, and havent aged at all,probably have a preferred plastic surgeon for facelifts, foreheadlifts, blepharoplasties, cheek implants, rhinoplasties, a tuck hereor a tuck there, and a large chest double curvature. Even easierthan those, are all the injectable prescription botulinum toxinproducts such as Botox, Dysport, and Javederm. Injections withthese products can help camouflage facial wrinkles and are becomingas routine for some people as a once or twice a year formal dentalexam; not to mention teeth whitening.

Do you remember American history whichincorporated beliefs from our founding fathers? The generationreading this was taught straight factual American history as asubject way back then, just like they were taught cursive, asoon-to-be archaic means to communicate, because it seems to be onits way out. All youll have to do in the future is type. (I hopeyounger people practice a signature however; they may need it inthe transitional decade to sign a credit card slip for anti-agingcream).

I digress. Heres myhistory. Juan Ponce de Len y Figueroa wasthe Spanish explorer who led the firstEuropean expedition to the state of Florida, which he named. He waslooking for the Fountain of Youth. Well, he didnt find it. Today,there are more older people in Florida than ever, and they lookpretty weathered to me. Ive done the living in Florida thing, too,so Im not picking on them. Its just that Ill have something tosay about the sun. But right now I do have something more to sayabout the Fountain of Youth.

Heres the thing. Or heresmy bright idea founded on sound principle. And I am a firm believerin new ideas, which usually take some time to accept. As a matterof fact, one of my favorite Albert Einstein quotes is If at first the idea is not absurd, thenthere is not hope for it. The Fountain ofYouth is not to be found in a jar or in a sink hole. Its going tobe found in the laboratory.

Chapter 2:Spirit

Since this is soimportant, spirit is next. But first, I dont want to leave you wondering aboutthe tantalizing ending to the previous chapter. Im trying to makeit exciting for those addicted thriller/suspense/mass-marketedpaperback readers. Yes, Im talking about you guys .

For those of us in the transitionaldecade, we have seen technological change at the speed of light.Even more so, think of the change a forty-year-old has seen. Thehigh tech world has sped up even faster during their lifetime thanours because our earlier years were more laid back and life movedat a slower pace.

If you think back to the historic dayin December 1980 when John Lennon was assassinated outside his NewYork apartment, there was no live television coverage with ahovering helicopter at the police scene, we didnt receive aninstantaneous text message from a friend or a news source, and wordof mouth didnt spread like wildfire from cell phones stuck to ourears. In the U.S., the announcement came from Howard Cosell, afterthe shooting was ABCs judgment call to break the news during a NewEngland Patriots and Miami Dolphins football game. Announcer Cosellfinally told us of the unspeakable tragedy that Lennon had beenshot twice and had died en-route to Roosevelt Hospital. Jump aheadto today and we are bombarded with news from multiple sources asits happening.

So what is the point? Molecularbiologists, scientific institutions, and gene researchers continueto unravel our understanding of chromosomes down to the very endsof our double-stranded DNA. Think of boat ropes which are perfectlycut and intact at their ends. Over time, the end starts to fray andcome apart which is also occurring at the tail ends of yourchromosomes. These end points are called telomeres. Although thetelomeres try to prevent the rest of the chromosomes from gettingshorter, they can lose a bit themselves with cell division andstress. Importantly for this discussion, telomeres play a part inaging. Except for sperm and egg cells, cells die when the telomeresbecome excessively short, and herein lies the link with the agingprocess. Telomeres that have aged and are shortening too muchcorrelate with the changes we see with aging.