transgender vs cis(gender)

Cis(gender)- is defined as the sex you are assigned at birth, while transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity differs from the sex they are assigned at birth.

Recently I have been working on various keynote presentations on the paradigm shift for gerontology, specifically on anti-aging.  To ‘add life to your years and years to your life’,  it seems gerontologists have shifted from pursing life extension strategies to anti-aging.

In that regard I have searched for more information on the biological markers for aging. One of the tests I have found relates to the significant loss of hormone levels, specifically DHEA. According to Roy Walford in his textbook (The 120 year diet ) table 2.2 in males DHEA  declines from 3400 ng./ml of plasma in the 20-30 age group to less than 900 ng/ml by age 60. Corresponding figures for females are 2200 to 800 .

The Fifth edition (2013) of Disease Prevention and Treatment  published by Life Extension Foundation on p. 608 details how DHEA is converted to Androstenediol an intermediate hormone which can then produce either and/or  both– the male and female sex hormones, viz. testosterone and the 3 major estrogens (estrone,, estradiol and estriol).  The hormonal cascade also shows that the enzyme aromatase can convert testosterone to the female sex hormones.

I wonder if an imbalance of this hormonal cascade can produce the increase in transgenders we are witnessing. Maybe by altering these conversions we could preventive the transgender phenomenon.

 

 

Anti-aging therapies and doctor assisted dying

These anti-aging therapies include bio-identical hormonal replacement, management of oxidative stress with anti- oxidants, reduction of chronic inflammation a forerunner of atherosclerosis and heart disease, genetic-restoring telomere length, stem cell therapy to replace senescent cells, etc.

In one of my keynote presentations, I discuss 7 ways to slow the aging process. Hopefully by slowing and/or reversing the aging process, these individuals can also change their biological clock to a period when they did not have these chronic diseases!

Should these breakthroughs materialize, we may even witness the time when people in nursing homes may actually be discharged and return to their homes, much like we now do with patients who are sent home from hospital after recovering from a medical illness or surgical treatment.

Maybe the health status of those individuals requesting “assisted dying” could be enhanced or their delayed if their biological life clock was reversed to an earlier period when they did not have those debilitating symptoms.

The late Dr.Roy Walford. in his book Maximum Life Span relates the history of the government’s approach to the polio epidemic of the 1940’s and 50’s His comment: “… if the government had invested in perfecting better iron lungs we would now have the best designed most comfortable iron lungs imaginable inhabited by thousands of polio victims…” Instead, by investing in basic research and developing a vaccine, epidemics like polio and smallpox have now theoretically been eradicated from our planet.

Regarding nursing homes, Walford comments “…the vast social support structures continuously accumulating to care for the helpless elderly are the iron lungs of Gerontology…”

It should be noted that in the 19th century when Dr. Edward Jenner developed his crude smallpox vaccine, he and the world did not know that smallpox was also caused by a virus. In my view the current knowledge of the causes of the aging process is probably at the same stage when Jenner was experimenting with a smallpox vaccine which he tested on his own son.

We do not really know what causes the aging process that leads to the development of the chronic symptoms and diseases of the elderly, what I like to call the 5 “D’s-disability, depression, discomfort, dementia, chronic diseases, and death. Why do the levels of hormones like DHEA begin to drop after age 30?

Cholesterol controversy

With the knowledge of the role that cholesterol plays in the biosynthesis of the sex hormones precursors (pregnenolone and DHEA), the integrity of the myelin sheath of nerve fibres and possible role in multiple sclerosis, as well as a natural nutrient antioxidant and/or free radical scavenger it was gratifying to hear and to see on TV that the dietary restriction of cholesterol has been waved.
In my previous blogs I have for years advised against the use of cholesterol lowering drugs,not only for these functions but also for the studies which found a relationship of cardiomyopathy associated with certain statin drugs, especially in women.
I wonder how soon and if doctors will stop prescribing statin and other cholesterol lowering drugs-