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Aging is a natural process.
Over time, as the stem cells we're born with become used up, our body is less and less able to regenerate itself.
It's less and less able to replace damaged or dying cells and our organs slowly stop working, our skin becomes wrinkled and begins to sag, muscle becomes weaker and our energy levels and health deteriorate.
That's natural.
But then there is accelerated aging, premature aging, where this process happens years or decades before it should. And while this is definitely not natural, unfortunately, it’s becoming more and more common.
We're seeing people in their 30's look like they're in their 40s, and people in their 40's look and feel like they're 50.
That's not natural, and it has a cause. Several actually, as covered in the Longevity Series.
But in this article we're going to cover one very key cause directly related to our gut and brought on by harmful bacteria, the diet that feeds them, and Leaky Gut, which it results in.
We’re going to cover exactly what is happening to our cells, what is doing this, how this affects aging and what we can do to prevent it.
This is something that accelerates aging by destroying our cells so that our stem cells are needed to produce new cells more often than they should, thus accelerating our biological aging process and making us “old” before our time.
It’s a word you’ve probably heard, but never gotten a real explanation for: Free Radicals.
We’re going to go very deep here for a minute, then we’ll come back up.
You've heard of or know what an atom is.
Very basically, it contains a particle called a neutron at its center and, circling around it, are other particles called electrons and protons.
Think of it as the solar system: the neutron is the sun, and the electrons and protons are planets orbiting around them. Not exact, but good enough for an example.
Except this solar system can only be seen by the best microscopes.
When atoms join together, they're called molecules. And, in your body (and everywhere else), they come together to make groups of molecules, like amino acids or fatty acids. And together these build up to make larger things like cells.
Okay. So a molecule is small. But it’s what your cells are made of. And it’s very exact. And very stable.
Now, when a cell dies, the molecules that made up that cell are broken apart… And some can be damaged. What that means is, on some, they can lose one of their electrons.
But they need that electron. It makes them stable. Without it they’re off-kilter, and they don’t like that.
So what do they do? Well, they go and steal an electron from another molecule, of course. Maybe one that’s still part of a cell.
But now that one is unstable. So it steals one from another molecule, which then steals one from another, etc, etc.
Okay. This causes trouble in a cell, obviously, as these molecules make up that cell.
It can alter the cell’s membrane, making it less functional.
It can open “holes” in the cell so important things leak out and harmful things get in.
It can prevent or impair cell-signaling (communication) such as with hormones, so messages can’t be delivered to or by the cell.
And it can lead to the cell’s death.
We don't like any of these things.
Luckily, other specific molecules made by our body, and that we get from plants and fruits, can take these free radicals and give them what they want — that missing electron. And they can do so without causing themselves to become free radicals.
These are called antioxidants.
You’ve heard of many of them: Vitamins C, E & A, Zinc, Selenium and Copper, and Flavonoids and Polyphenols (antioxidants in fruits, vegetables, tea, cocoa, and red wine). These are antioxidants.
(Now you know one reason vitamins are so important.)
Also, the Fullerene in our Metal-Free & Chemical Cleanse and the Astaxanthin in our Omega 3 Health are two of the most powerful antioxidants there are.
These help to protect the molecules holding healthy cells together from being harmed by free radicals.
Alright.
Now, if the natural death of a cell was the only thing creating free radicals, we’d be fine. Our body, using antioxidants that it makes and that it gets from the foods we eat, could easily neutralize any free radicals.
We even have natural free radical formation during metabolism — the creation of energy inside the cell.
And our immune system produces free radicals intentionally to attack harmful bacteria and other pathogens.
So our body is set up to handle these when they’re at a normal level.
Unfortunately, these aren’t the only way we get free radicals.
And the number of ways we get them has been increasing every year for decades. Far beyond our body’s ability to neutralize. And they’re causing injury and death to cells faster and faster each year.
People in their 30’s now have more free radicals causing harm in their bodies than people in their 60’s did decades ago.
As we know that we only have a certain number of stem cells, and they only have a certain number of times they can divide to make replacement cells until they can no longer divide, knowing what’s harming our cells and speeding up the use of our stem cells becomes quite important to prevent accelerated aging.
The number of ways free radicals occur in our body today is actually astonishing. And what they do in large numbers isn’t good.
As proteins are made of molecules, free radicals can disrupt proteins inside our bodies, whether in cells or in our hormones or enzymes, impairing their ability to do their jobs.
They can harm fatty acid structures our body needs, like the membranes around each of our cells.
They can even harm our DNA, causing changes to the DNA that lead to the improper formation of cells and even to mutations in cells that cause us a lot of trouble down the road.
And the key things causing them are... harmful bacteria and toxins, both of which get into our bloodstream via our gut.
We know that harmful bacteria attack our intestinal walls, causing microscopic perforations leading to Leaky Gut. And that this then allows these bacteria to get out into our bloodstream and travel through our body.
And we know that many toxins do this as well and also make it through into our body.
These bacteria and toxins then attack our own cells, harming us in two key ways: first, causing the cells to die before their time, and second causing them to release free radicals when they do.
While these cells would die and be replaced on their own, this greatly speeds up the process.
But they do more. These harmful bacteria, when they die (which they do constantly while being replaced by new ones) release many more free radicals and bio-toxins than our cells do, and some of these bio-toxins are quite destructive to our cells.
To what degree this happens, and how far it pushes us down the path of premature aging, depends on how many bacteria and toxins have made it into the body and how "leaky" our gut has become (how much more it will be letting through).
We need to address the harmful bacteria doing this and heal the damage done so new bacteria and toxins can't make it into our body.
When we do that. When we address the cause and then work to heal the damage done, we don't just slow aging, we can even reverse it to a large degree.
Skin becomes healthier, softer and smoother, it's easier to keep weight off and put on muscle, and our levels of energy and overall health improve.
It can be quite shocking.
But it's real.
If you would like to slow down, or even reverse to a degree, the aging process that occurs in life, then I highly recommend doing the Gut Health Protocol & 30-Day Challenge.
With Bio Clear to help destroy these bacteria and their protections, Digestive Enzymes to destroy them before they enter our bodies newly, PerfectAmino to help heal the damage done, and a few other key products, we have the tools to reverse premature aging for real.
Do the Gut Health Protocol and see for yourself.
There is nothing that produces a greater increase in overall health and longevity naturally.
I hope this helps.
Go here for the Gut Health Protocol.
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We’ve all heard of gluten.
We’ve heard that it can be bad for us, not bad for us, mildly bad for us, etc.
But what is it really and what does it actually do?
Gluten is a mixture of proteins found in many grains, processed foods and commercial drinks that contain two specific proteins called gliadin and glutenin.
Now, some people know they are sensitive to these, either severely or only mildly, but there are many more who actually are sensitive and experiencing reactions without knowing what’s causing it.
The amount of toxins coming into our body every day, from the environment and our food and water sources, grows every year. And it is affecting us in many ways.
But one area it affects us quite severely is in our microbiome, where these toxins kill off the beneficial bacteria that help to produce key calming neurotransmitters like GABA and serotonin.
We covered the microbiome in the last article: a colony of trillions of bacteria in our colon, and how it affects every aspect of our health, our hormones, our longevity and the ability to build muscle, lose body fat and stay fit.
Our body's ability to relax, de-stress, recover, and sleep deeply is heavily determined by one area of our body overlooked more often than almost any other — our Microbiome.
This colony of trillions of bacteria living in our large intestine helps produce the calming, relaxing, cortisol-lowering, and sleep-giving neurotransmitters GABA and serotonin.
These bacteria have more to do with our overall health, calmness of mind, nerve function, ability to sleep, ability to burn fat and build muscle, and even our hormones than you might think.
This colony, made up of about 500 different species of bacteria, is called the Microbiome.