Homone & Age

Thirty percent of your age expectancy is determined at birth by your genes. The rest of your maximum achievable life years is up to you! We can influence the outcome through lifestyle factors such as nutrition and exercise, but also through avoidance of stimulants such as cigarettes and alcohol.

Growth hormone: The natural fountain of youth

The growth hormone (HGH) is considered the most important of anti-aging hormone. The longer the body's own production of HGH can be maintained, the slower we age. HGH reduces fat, both visible body fat and fat in the blood vessels, which is responsible for heart attack and stroke. HGH builds muscles and tightens the skin. It also slows down osteoporosis. No wonder this hormone is increasingly used in anti-aging medicine. While the supplementation of growth hormone is still little researched and involves health risks, and long-term studies are completely lacking, with a few tricks, we can boost your HGH production and kickstart youthfulness.

In the evening, avoid high insulin levels, because insulin suppresses the body's own HGH production, which is produced exclusively at night in the pituitary gland. So at dinner eat fish or meat from the grill with vegetables and salad and go without bread, rice, noodles or potatoes. This prevents strong insulin release in the evening and boosts the natural hormone production.

Avoid daily alcohol, because alcohol also suppresses HGH production. Not only cultivated wine drinkers are fascinated by the "French paradox": Drink alcohol and protect your heart! The apparently positive studies that gave rise to the idea of the paradox, all commissioned by the wine industry, seem to prove the protective effect of red wine on the coronary arteries. Yet it is always overlooked that France has the highest rate of liver cirrhosis and that at best the coronary arteries benefit from alcohol, but not the heart muscle. For these reason, we should not drink alcohol regularly or moderately.

However, there is consolation: Three days of absolute alcohol abstinence can even make the liver (almost) completely forget a drunken night out. The liver can regenerate very well. So if you don't want to completely do without your glass of beer or wine, you should enjoy your bottle once or twice a week! The remaining days, however, belong to liver regeneration and HGH production.

Sleep early, cool and dark!

Go to bed as early as you can! HGH production is at its highest during the first hours of the night. Only at night is the hormone produced and released in the pituitary gland. Keep the bedroom cool and dark so that another friend of youth, the hormone melatonin, can be released in higher concentrations.

Brake or accelerate?

Pay attention to the stress hormone cortisol. This hormone level rises under long-term stress and reflects the situation of the last 5 to 6 months. If this period was particularly exhausting and tense, the level of cortisol rises to values above 20 μg/ml. Starting at 20 μg/ml, I recommend that my patients take a 2-week Maldives vacation without telephone! Cortisol is a destructive hormone, which suppresses the desired production of body-building hormones known as anabolic hormones. The body cannot accelerate and brake at the same time! The most important anabolic hormones are HGH and testosterone, made famous in competitive sports. Both hormones are typically suppressed in stressed people.

Lower stress hormones

Cortisol can be measurably reduced by physical and mental stress management. Daily light endurance training has an extremely positive effect on our body and mind. Further mental relaxation can be found through a highly effective relaxation exercise called the Relaxation Response, based on the book of the same name by cardiologist Herbert Benson of Harvard University.

HGH is not only vital for children, but also for adults. "Too fat, no energy and always tired" is how we describe the decline in HGH production due to poor lifestyle decisions. Ninety percent of people have too-low HGH levels, so even a slight increase in hormone production can often work wonders. Even if many doctors find it difficult to measure the hormone level in the blood, we can at least measure our total protein level in the blood. The basic building block of HGH is protein, so those with low protein levels in their blood suffer accordingly from low production of HGH.

Protein: Good or bad?

Every day we read: "We eat too much protein!" But that's not true. Just as little protein in the blood is found as too much protein. The misunderstanding really is: "We eat too much meat!" And that's true! The protein in fish and meat is very good, but the accompanying substances of cholesterol, triglycerides and uric acid are harmful in excess. Protein can also be found in dairy products, eggs, legumes such as lentils and beans, as well as in nuts, seeds and whole grains. This is why these protein sources are often used instead of meat.

Since HGH is formed from protein with the help of zinc, we must ensure an adequate level of protein and zinc. Zinc orotate helps with zinc deficiency. For a targeted protein substitution, I recommend a mixture of amino acids to my patients, to be taken immediately before falling asleep in order to stimulate the body's natural production of HGH through high concentrations of arginine and lysine. Already after 30 minutes the natural production of HGH increases significantly.

To sum it up

We can slow down the aging process with little effort. Avoid animal fat. Eat dinner as early as possible. At dinner, leave out the carbohydrates and limit meals to lean fish or game with salad or vegetables. Develop a personal strategy for healthy stress management. Have blood values checked regularly (see box) and -- if necessary -- optimized.