Brian R. Clement - 7 Keys to Lifelong Sexual Vitality: The Hippocrates Institute Guide to Sex, Health, and Happiness

Copyright 2012 by Brian Clement, PhD, NMD, LN, and Anna Maria Clement, PhD, NMD, LN

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The material in this book is intended for education. It is not meant to take the place of diagnosis and treatment by a qualified medical practitioner or therapist. No expressed or implied guarantee as to the effects of the use of the recommendations can be given nor liability taken. Only first names and pseudonyms have been used to protect the privacy of individuals.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

First printing, June 2012

ISBN 978-1-60868-092-4

Printed in the USA on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

One recent holiday season, I met with Drs. Brian and Anna Maria Clement on a project examining gene expression and the effect that the Hippocrates Health Institute lifestyle has on altering it. They graciously invited me to their holiday party, and I watched Anna Maria and Brian dancing to tune after tune as a young couple in love, totally oblivious to everything except the moment.

Knowing their heavy daily workload and the perpetual international and national speaking tours that they conduct, I was impressed by the apparent love they displayed despite their bigger calling and commitment to helping humanity.

Drs. Brian and Anna Maria have been the backbone of the renowned Hippocrates Health Institute through both thick and thin for years now. For the first time, they are further expanding to accommodate the global audience that attends their Florida-based program.

Over several decades of working with hundreds of thousands of people, they began to observe that more than food affects the health and longevity of individuals. Biological sexuality is intimately woven into the physical and mental health of all people. Together they began to accrue stories, science, and statistics on how central sex is in our lives. They also concluded, as they explain in this pinnacle book, that the moral codes of our civilization limit public discussion about sexuality. Yet, in all civilizations, the power of sexuality has always been present and acknowledged to a greater or lesser degree.

In my Asian culture, the yang, the male force, and the yin, the female force, should be balanced within every human being. The chi of sexual energy that binds us together is what perpetuates humanity. Sexual energy is the foremost driving force throughout life, even well beyond our reproductive years. But sexuality is more than the drive that triggers the physical act of intercourse. It is more the combined force of energy that is manifested by the unification of two committed, loving souls. Emotional, physical, and even spiritual well-being is the reward that one gains by expressing this foundational drive.

For more than three and a half decades, I have worked as a urological surgeon, with an intense focus on sex hormones, aging, health, and disease. Among my research projects was one that studied why centenarians such as the Okinawans of Japan have such remarkably high hormone levels compared to North Americans and Europeans. We found this to be true among the Okinawans healthy population well into their seventies, eighties, nineties, and even their hundreds. As we observed the oldest generation of the longest-living humans on earth, it became clear that their low-calorie diets (1,500 to 1,800 calories per day) influence their well-being. They consume a primarily plant-based cuisine from land and sea. They are mentally and physically active, playing sports and games, and they do not permit social boundaries between different age groups. Okinawans are radically distinct people, yet genetically close to the original Taiwanese. They are happy and healthy people, with well-defined facial features and small frames.

Merging the science of longevity with these observations, we can see that there is now growing, unshakable evidence showing that life extension, vitality, and sexuality are all enhanced via proper food and healthy minds. We can also predict that people living in this way not only desire and achieve more sexual intimacy, but do so much longer than the rest of us.

Given my background in biology, chemistry, medicine, and evolutionary biology, my viewpoint is that we humans are as primal as all other creatures, with the same core biological goals of survival and procreation. Our sex hormones are tuned to these goals both before and after the reproductive years. Between the ages of twenty and forty, production of sex hormones, which also affect the adrenal and thyroid glands, begins to slow, and later it declines abruptly for women during menopause and, yes, for men during andropause.

In some ways, evolution has not caught up with our modernization. Modern conveniences such as electricity, heated homes, refrigeration, garments that keep us warm, and, above all, diagnostic medicine, which helps us identify disease before it kills, have helped to prolong the reproductive years. So what can we do about this evolutionary lag? Sex hormones are powerful body signals that can enhance or hinder our overall health, in addition to their controlling influence on sexuality and reproduction.

Drs. Clement begin the dialogue with the influence that food has on sex. They point out that positive nutritional factors such as minerals, vitamins, and proteins from plant fare, as well as whole food supplementation, help to sustain and increase sex hormone activity. They also explain that toxins in air and water, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides and generally the plethora of chemicals spewed around the globe act to distort, weaken, and neuter healthy endocrine function and hormonal activity. This adds up to sexual dysfunction, which, when chronic, halts the biological and psychological desire to procreate.

What you will find quite interesting is the importance Drs. Clement place on the senses. Foreplay, including touch, fragrance, massage, erotic creativity, and emotional intimacy, starts the endocrinal engines and helps sex hormones to do their work. You can further enhance the act of love by preparing your body via pelvic exercise, yoga, visualization, tantra, and Taoism, as well as the totality of healthy living practices. It is refreshing to read the Clements recommendations on how to enhance your sexuality without unhealthy practices.

There is no doubt that this book is one of the most important contributions to the betterment of sex. 7 Keys to Lifelong Sexual Vitality is a clear and concise guidebook leading us back to sanity. When you read and embrace some of these commonsense suggestions, you will then possess the ability to differentiate distortion, cultural dogma, and outright craziness about sex from the sacred, biologically driven desire for intimacy in a committed relationship.