At age 44, my friend and colleague Dr. Sara Gottfried, M.D., got a research opportunity few people would want. She performed a simple blood test of how fast she was aging, and she failed.
She was aging 20 years faster than her chronological years, as measured by her telomeres. Those are the protective caps on your chromosomes that determine how your cells age. You want telomeres that are long and lovely. Dr. Sara’s were short and stubby.
Despite what we’ve been told, it’s not normal to age fast, gain weight, feel anxious, and become disease-ridden. Just as the number on the bathroom scale isn’t always a simple reflection of calories consumed vs. calories burned, the number of years you’ve lived isn’t always a reflection of your biological age (meaning the age of your cells).
Dr. Sara’s telomeres and body needed rescuing, so she dove into the science and created a breakthrough protocol to slow down aging.
Dr. Sara also had adrenal fatigue, a slow thyroid, estrogen dominance, disrupted sleep, and insulin resistance. Because her cells were numb to insulin, her blood sugar was climbing. Not in the diabetes range, but prediabetes. These hormone problems added up to faster aging.
During the past five years of research, Dr. Sara discovered crucial truths locked in our genes—truths about how you age, how you gain weight, how your body handles stress, and so much more. In her new book, Younger: A Breakthrough Program to Reset Your Genes, Reverse Aging, and Turn Back the Clock 10 Years, she reveals important yet little-known truths to slow down aging and reverse anxiety. She helps you create hormonal harmony and turn on and off the appropriate longevity genes. Here are just a few highlights:
- Breast cancer runs in her family, so she learned how to turn off her cancer-promoting genes using her fork and wine glass.
- Sara doesn’t detox well—neither do half of Americans—so she needed to add a specific B vitamin to her daily regimen. Hint: we talk about the MTHFR gene and detox in our interview below).
- Her grandmother died of Alzheimer’s disease, so Dr. Sara was thrilled to learn about the functional medicine protocol that preserves cognitive function regardless of age. Hint: it involves a specific way of eating, exercising, practicing yoga or meditation, flossing, brushing teeth, and sleeping.
In her new book, you’ll learn what happened to Dr. Sara’s telomeres over the past 5 years as she tested and refined her protocol, first on herself, and then on 1,000 other women.
I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of Younger and loved it so much that I wrote the following endorsement:
The brilliant book, Younger, by Dr. Sara Gottfried MD is mesmerizing, cutting-edge and a must-read! It teaches how you can turn your good genes on and your bad genes off via a healthy mix of science and gene information, together with simple assessment tools and powerful lifestyle changes. You’ll feel happier and calmer, look and feel younger, and actually reverse age-related diseases – even if you have anxiety, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, breast cancer, heart disease or obesity in your family. Why wouldn’t you want to influence your genes for the better? I know I do and so do my community of anxious women. We will all benefit immensely from Dr. Gottfried’s wisdom!
~ Trudy Scott, nutritionist and author of The Antianxiety Food Solution
I also had the opportunity to interview Dr. Sara about this topic and you can watch and listen below as we discuss some of the following:
- Telomeres and aging (at 44 Dr. Sara had the telomeres of a 64 year old woman)
- Healthspan and feeling fantastic
- Walking on the beach for the adrenals, earthing and vagal toning
- Forest bathing and the effects on cortisol levels [this isn’t in the book]
- Ikaria “the island where they forgot to die” – herbal teas, tight social community, long lunches, no watches, 7.5 hours of sleep
- Date night and chanting in the infrared sauna
- Finnish study: saunas, longevity and the FOXO3 gene (a panacea? and even a form of exercise for those with heart failure)
- MTHFR “detox” or methylation gene (depression and alcohol detox)
- We can impact how our genes talk to our bodies in such profound ways
- The FKBP5 Gene is turned on by severe trauma (studied in Holocaust victims) and affects how we handle stress
- The TH gene is turned on by the cold
- rs6330 – NGF/nerve growth factor gene and vagal tone (CC form = more anxious females; TT form = more anxious males) [this isn’t in the book]
- Genetic testing is optional but can be done with 23andme, Pathway and SmartDNA (in Australia)
- Testing telomeres with Lifelength and SpectraCell
- Vagus nerve and parasympathetic system – affects anxiety levels, the gut, voice and brain – improved with meditation, prayer, chanting, social connection, singing, call girlfriends, sleeping on your right side
- 7 day Younger challenge (most powerful levers from the book)
- 7 week Younger challenge
- Thing about your 75 year old self: “I want to make decisions that are kind to her” and “How can you kind be to your future self”
If this resonates with you, I encourage you to join Dr. Sara’s slow aging revolution by ordering your copy of Younger.
I hope you’ll join Dr. Sara and me in our quest to continue resetting genes and reversing aging in 2017. The science is yours for the taking!
If you are like Dr. Sara and have issues with your adrenals, thyroid, insulin, or sleep, you could be aging too fast, as she was. And while the genetic hand you’ve been dealt may seem like a fait accompli, the greatest truth Dr. Sara discovered is that you can “turn on” good genes and “turn off” bad ones using the seven-week protocol she developed based on the latest research. Thankfully, she’s done all the research so you don’t have to!
When you order the new book, feel free to click here to submit your receipt and get several bonuses for a limited time, including Dr. Sara’s Younger Quick Start Guide. This guide includes an overview of the Younger Protocol, Dr. Sara’s Anti-Aging Prerequisites, and a sample menu so that you’re ready when the book arrives.
I’ll be ordering this book, I’ve got MTHFR x 2 and Pyrrole Disorder. Severe anxiety, I feel out of control. My face has aged so much in the last year and in particular in the 4 months since I’ve been on sups for Pyrrole…it’s scaring me and making my anxiety worse. My treating Dr for Pyrrole isn’t concerned about MTHFR. I don’t know what to do.
Find an Alternative doctor. No gluten/dairy/soy/sugar/GMO…taking vitamins/good oils/minerals…probiotic…LDN..detoxing help me. Folate/methylcobalamin with intrinsic factor/coenyzmated B vitamins and more help me. Anxiety can be due to low oxygen in the brain. Rebuild the cells to burn oxygen by no gluten etc 5000mcg of biotin/rhodiola/coenyzme Q10/Zn/Amour thyroid/Mg/Vit C/Vit E/Vit A and more may help oxygen/anxiety.
Shasha
Thanks for sharing what has helped you!
Sharon
Enjoy the book – I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn her anti-anging tips many of which help with aging skin (as well as everything else). Resveratrol and berberine are 2 of her top products for this. I’m not aware of the skin aging issue connection to pyroluria supplements unless it’s a copper detox effect?
Keep in mind have the MTHFR polymorphisms don’t actually mean they are causing problems. Additional testing (like high homocysteine) could confirm.
You sold me Trudy! Will be ordering the book. This past month since getting back my 23andme report has been very educational along with a lot of ahaaaa moments. Oh if I only knew all this years ago! But better late then never.
Chanting in the sauna has me intrigued. I just started infrared sauna and red light therapy. Dave Asprey’s talks on red light got me started. I found myself humming and tapping my toes to some random rap song the other day. Lol!!! Usually rap irritates me. I’m listening to music in the car again, and sometimes even sing along
What kind of red light therapy are you doing Jaci – do you have an infra red lamp and if so how do you use it? Tnx.
Red light therapy and sauna are at a local tanning salon, Australian Tanning Co. I’m doing the maximum they allow which is 20 min sessions. I’m currently going 5 times per week. I’ve also changed my bedside bulb to red. Red light (similar to sitting around the fire) signals to the brain it’s time to wind down, at least that’s what Dave Asprey says. On Daves site he recommends some really inexpensive lights, as does Dr Mercola on his site.
Thanks for this info Jaci – best of luck on your health and wellness journey… 🙂
Super, thanks for sharing and glad it’s helping. Would love a link to Dave’s blog on the topic?
I’d like to find out about how this can be done at home….
I’ve been using Vielight 810 intranasal infrared therapy before bed. This form of LLLT is helping reducing some of my cervicogenic and headache pain. It also seems to prevent 4 am wakenings and helps me get at least 6 hours of sleep. Anyone interested in infrared therapy might google Vielight or checkout Michael Hamblin’s work on photobiomodulation.
I went searching. Thanks for the info. Dr Hamblins YouTube was followed by this one. Even more good info.
https://youtu.be/zCBCsPcSdjE
Thanks!
Jaci
If you’re getting into your genes you’ll love the book! It’s fascinating! Do come back and let us know your favorite parts!
And enjoy that chanting
I think Dr. Sara Gottfried was looking at my lab results! I am fascinated, as we all are, about the powerful knowledge we are learning about managing our health with our genetic predispositions in mind.
Telomeres–do I really want to know how short mine already are? Not sure, but definitely curious.
Just listened to this – wonderful, thanks Trudy, as ever I love your warm, positive and enthusiastic interview style and btw, you are looking amazing and glowing in your new video presentation setup…!
Have bought the book to read on our imminent break by the ocean! 🙂
How do you convert the gene names (eg. FKBP5) to the rs numbers? I had my 23andMe done and interpreted it with Sterling’s app but many of these genes don’t appear but are in the 23andMe raw data file as rs numbers. Which app can you recommend for interpreting all these genes. I am also interested in a few others, i.e.
5HTTLPR = Sensitivity gene
NR3C1 = Stress vulnerability gene
SLC6A4 (rs6354) = social phobia gene
I’ve been dying to get an infra red sauna for home for a while now but sadly there’s nowhere to put it, bar the sitting room! Space is an issue in London! I use the one at the local Virgin Active gym which thankfully has just been completely and wonderfully refurbished but it’s still not an infra red. Before the refurb I asked if they’d consider installing an infra red one but they couldn’t as they had to follow standard company policy!
Love Sara’s idea of date night in the sauna! Far more beneficial than out to a restaurant eating toxic food cooked in ‘bad’ oils! 🙂
Drew
This is on my list to do as an entire blog post. I’m still trying to figure out the quickest and easiest way to do it! When I’ve done it manually it’s like a maze that never ends!
Here are 2 blogs for starters for FKBP5
https://www.reddit.com/r/genetics/comments/4cgxqt/private_gene_testing_in_uk/?st=izr10g4a&sh=3497e01a
and
http://www.geneticsgenie.com/what-fkbp5-snps-does-23andme-test/
I have not verified any of this yet and am looking for a tool that does this for us. I’m sure you’re doing this as a curiosity exercise because right now much of this research is in it’s infancy and in many instances we don’t know if these defects are actually causing us issues. We also have so much to learn about the interactions of all the good genes, bad genes, diet and environmental impacts
I figure any sauna is better than none!
Thanks Trudy for this, yes I appreciate it’s a maze – ! Wish I knew more about this, yes it is out of curiosity…
You go to 23andme “tools”, then click on “browse raw data” and then put in FKBP5 or whatever you’re looking for. It will give you the many variations of that gene and it’s rs #.
Hello Trudy,
I wonder if there is a possibility to buy the book here in the UK for the special price?
Thank you,
Barbara
Barbara
I’d check on Amazon UK and even consider the kindle version. You may also want to connect with Dr. Sara’s team directly as this is her baby.
Trudy, many thanks for coming back to me. Unfortunately there is only a CD version available on Amazon UK which is very expensive. I’ll try to contact Sara directly.
Thank you again,
Barbara
Barbara
I’m not sure where you’re looking but I see both book and kindle on amazon.co.uk