Most of us keep track of our age chronologically. It makes sense. We are born on a certain day and year, and you just keep adding one after each anniversary of that day. At a certain point, the feeling is that those numbers are advancing more rapidly than anticipated. I have started keeping track another way. Let me explain.
I have mentioned multiple times about the work I am doing to restore my health to 100%. I would guess I am somewhere between 90 and 95% right now, but I hail from stubborn Eastern European stock and will not be satisfied until I’m back better than ever. This is a tall order since I am working against the aforementioned clock.
I started working with a group called Function Health just over a year ago. Function Health is a company founded by Dr. Mark Hyman, author of Young Forever: The Secrets to Living Your Longest, Healthiest Life. I devoured that book a couple of years ago and highlighted and underlined it like a fiend. I followed much of the advice and implemented new things into my wellness regimen. I found that I enjoyed his podcast, The Dr. Hyman Show, and would listen to about one in every three episodes.
As a promo for the show, he mentions Function Health, a company that he founded to help people better understand their own biomarkers. The standard blood panel to which we have all submitted our fluids at one point or another is as antiquated as the 8-track player. It tests what they know to test and frankly have always tested, but it is either sorely lacking (in the best case) or designed to prescribe a pharmaceutical (in the worst case). Even though we have made major advancements in the health and sciences, it remains unchanged for over 50 years. It leaves much to be desired.
I started my Function Health journey just over a year ago and had over 100 biomarkers checked. Many of these are indicators of potential future problems that could be prevented through diet and lifestyle choices. What if you could catch high blood pressure or diabetes early and avoid facing these health challenges? Or what if you could see markers in the blood that would indicate low-grade chronic inflammation, which will eventually lead to disease (such as I had). How about a vitamin deficiency, such as Vitamin D, which causes a multitude of problems with mood, immune function, and bone health, among just a few. Especially in northern climes like we live in, most of the year, we are sorely deficient in Vitamin D due to lack of sun.
In addition to the intel on all the inner workings of the body, the Function Health information further calculates a person’s biological age. Think of this as what your body is telling you your age is, and not the calendar or the candles on the cake. Some people are metabolically unhealthy, and their biological age is older than their chronological age. Others have a younger biological age than their number of birthdays celebrated.
Here is what Function Health says about biological aging: “ Everything we do impacts our biological age: diet, exercise, environmental toxins, and physical and emotional stress. Optimizing those inputs and others, like prioritizing quality sleep, reducing exposure to environmental toxins, and even using certain phytochemicals can reverse your biological age. While eating a high sugar, starch, ultra-processed diet, being sedentary, overstressed, and sleep deprived will accelerate biological age.
You can’t change calendar age, but your biological age is reversible.”
I had no idea what I would learn when I signed up and had virtually all of my blood drained for the tests (maybe a bit of exaggeration). I knew that I was on the road to healing, but I was nervous about learning the results. They came in within three weeks of the testing, along with a comprehensive clinician’s notes explaining what I was looking at.
This is a good news, bad news sort of situation. The bad news was that I had 18 out of 113 that were out of range. Just like focusing on the bad grade on your child’s report card, I zeroed in on what was off. The good news was that I was biologically younger than my actual age by a little over nine years. I promptly showed this to Joan and told her that she was married to a much younger man. I was pleased with the good news portion and felt empowered and motivated to start introducing new protocols. I studied the clinician’s notes and shared the results with my doctor, and started incrementally working on what I could.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, when I submitted myself to the same blood-letting series of tests. Without going into too much detail and my personal concerns, just know that there were three key indicators, out of the 18, which I focused on based on where I felt like I could see the biggest bang for my buck. I made changes to my diet, exercise, lifestyle, sleep, and hormetic stress (cold plunges), all intending to produce better results in a year.
The results have been coming in little by little over the last couple of weeks, and I am pleased to announce that 10 of those biomarkers are improving, but more importantly, the three that I had focused on are all in the normal range. Making small changes every day for a year, it’s hard to measure if all the work is even paying off. At times, it is demoralizing. But I kept grinding away and ta-da, a year later it worked.
To put the icing on this birthday cake, my biological age is now 10.4 years younger than my actual age. A year passed by, and I find myself younger than I was a year ago. I know this sounds like bragging, and to be honest, it may be 10% bragging but 90% motivational to help empower others to improve their own wellness.
Your journey is certainly not mine, and what you may need to work on is likely different than what I need to work on. However, only when armed with valuable information can you ever know what you should or should not be doing. With this blog, I intend to help raise awareness by sharing what I have learned and simultaneously empowering others to make intentional choices to improve health outcomes.