Ewing PhD - Biological Youth

Conceived, written, and illustrated by Todd Ewing, PhD.

Copyright 2016 Todd Ewing, PhD.

All rights reserved, except where noted in the text.

Total Recovery and TR stylized logos are trademarks of Todd Ewing, PhD.

Produced in the United States of America.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My children Alex, Isaac, Elijah, and Sophie, for their curiosity, love, and support.

My wife Tara, for editing, proof-reading, and checking all my blind spots. For the inspiration to live healthy in my adult years. And most of all, for love and support.

My father and my brother, for successfully managing type 1 diabetes and for the inspiration to live healthy in my early years.

Ecosystem recovery nurtures rejuvenation and youthfulness.

Total Recovery or TR is a new way to think about our health and enhance our mindfulness. TR helps us visualize the cells in our bodies as living entities in a cell ecosystem much like animals and plants in a natural ecosystem. TR helps us visualize how each of our daily activities affects our cell ecosystem. As we enhance our mindfulness throughout the day, we help our cell ecosystem enter a state of recovery.

Total Recovery provides a Theory of Biological Youth which is derived from the total fitness of the body. Total fitness represents the resilience of our cell ecosystem to every typical physiological stress. As our total fitness increases, our cell ecosystem enters a state of repair and rejuvenation. With sustained rejuvenation, we can recover our biological youth.

For completeness, the Theory relates biological age to the total frailty of the body. Frailty is the opposite of fitness. Total frailty represents the vulnerability of our cell ecosystem to every typical physiological stress. As our total frailty increases, our cell ecosystem enters a state of erosion. With prolonged erosion, we increase our biological age, and we lose our biological youth.

In this chapter, we examine the following topics:

Total fitness represents everything that must go right in our bodies. It is composed of five different fitnesses metabolic, circadian, microbial, immune, and mental fitness. We're all aware of physical fitness what TR calls metabolic fitness. Many of us, however, overlook the other four fitnesses.

Even the word fitnesses as a plural sounds strange to us. We're used to hearing about fitness, but not fitnesses. Total Recovery is attempting something bold by getting us to consider both total fitness as a singular and the five fitnesses as a plural. It's like how we consider total color as a singular and the many colors as a plural.

We can imagine total fitness as a beam of pure white light and Total Recovery as an optical prism that splits total fitness into the five fitnesses. The five fitnesses have always been part of total fitness. We've just never thought about them separately.

Total Recovery splits total fitness into the five fitnesses.

Each of the five fitnesses represents the resilience of our cell ecosystem to particular stresses on the body. Each fitness is strengthened by different parts of the recovery lifestyle which we examine in Chapter Six: Hunter, Gatherer, Cosmonaut . Partial loss of any one fitness leads to particular disorders and diseases. Complete loss of any one fitness will eventually lead to death by natural causes.

Metabolic fitness . Its the resilience of the body to exertion stress, macronutrient stress, and DNA damage stress. Its strengthened by exercise, nutrition, and skincare. Its loss leads to cancer and diseases of the heart, brain, lungs, pancreas, kidneys, and liver.

Circadian fitness . Its the resilience of circadian rhythm to disruption. Its strengthened by a consistent daily schedule for sleeping, waking, eating, and exercising. Its loss leads to losses in all the other fitnesses, particularly mental fitness.

Microbial fitness . Its the resilience of the population of beneficial microbes in the gut and on every body surface. Its strengthened by fruit and vegetable consumption, tooth care, gum care, and skincare. Its loss leads to intestinal disorder and systemic inflammation.

Immune fitness . Its the resilience of the body to infection and inflammation. Its strengthened by an environment free of chemical toxins and pollutants, but rich in nature and biology. Its loss leads to allergy, brain inflammation, and autoimmune diseases.

Mental fitness . Its the resilience of the mind to anxiety, depression, and memory loss. Its strengthened by imagination, discipline, stress management, and the teachings of Total Recovery. Its loss leads to mood disorders and Alzheimers disease.

The five fitnesses are interconnected. Each one supports the others, and each one depends on the others. Events in our lives tend to affect one fitness and then cascade into effects on all the others. If we neglect any one fitness, all five of them suffer.

The first two fitnesses metabolic and circadian fitness will be examined in more detail in later chapters of this book. The other three fitnesses will be examined in more detail in Book Two .

Duke University researchers study how total fitness affects biological aging. They observe that young adults who have high total fitness at age 26 show less biological aging, less facial aging, and less mental aging when assessed again twelve years later at age 38.

The Duke researchers take the study of total fitness to a new level. Their study is, quite frankly, the inspiration for biological youth and the five fitnesses. We should all be grateful for their study. Throughout this book, we'll refer back to their study with this citation. [ ]

The Duke researchers assess the total fitness of nearly 1,000 adults at age 26 and again at age 38. They derive an estimate of the biological age of the subjects based on 18 different fitness measures listed below. They include 14 measures of metabolic fitness, one measure of microbial fitness, and three measures of immune fitness, as follows.

Duke Metabolic Fitness Measures

Duke Microbial and Immune Fitness Measures

The Duke researchers estimate the rate of biological aging of the subjects over the 12-year interval, between age 26 and age 38. The subjects with high total fitness age at a rate of almost zero years per calendar year. The subjects with low total fitness age at a rate of nearly three years per calendar year. [ ] Did you catch that? High total fitness causes people to age slowly. Low total fitness causes people to age fast!