01 September 2001

I’ve been overwhelmed by the response to the recent documentary, TO AGE OR NOT TO AGE. This month I have answered many more questions than I would normally answer, but I hope you will forgive me for those that I have been unable to answer, since I have been literally flooded with queries. It is exciting to think that so many people are passionately devoted to the idea of taking action themselves that can transform their lives. It has always been my belief that responsibility for health lies in our own hands and that the more responsibility we take for it, the more joy we are able to bring into our lives. Thank you all so much for your enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, I am head and shoulders deep in writing my next BIG book – AGE POWER - which is to be published by Random House in September 2002. It is a huge challenge. What I am attempting to do is draw together the most exciting information about how each of us can not only slow down the rate at which our bodies age but even, in medically measurable ways, reverse age related changes that have already taken place.

From a practical point of view, aging is nothing more than a deterioration of your body’s function and structure over time. When this takes place you wake up one day to discover that you no longer have the energy you once had, your skin and nails have lost their strength and glimmer, your digestion no longer seems to work as it once did. So common are such changes and many others, such as the rise in blood pressure, high cholesterol and triglycerides, that we have almost come to expect that dysfunction and degenerative disease are a natural consequence of time passing. What I have discovered in my research for AGE POWER is this is absolutely not true.

Thanks to a wealth of top quality research done in the last twenty five years we now know that this loss of vitality, impairment of function and increase in degenerative conditions is not a normal part of chronological aging Yet most of us are still caught up by negative beliefs about aging So the older we get the more we expect all the bad stuff to happen. Here are the facts:

Fact 1: It is biological not chronological age that matters.

Fact 2: The wonderful news that goes with this information is that by improving your ability to adapt to stressors and maintain physiological balance and function, you can effectively prevent accelerated aging and the degenerative diseases associated with it, and there is even better news.

Fact 3: Even when negative changes in your body have already taken place, by making alterations to the way you live and eat, many of these negative changes – in some case even all - can be reversed and you can measure this by the hard core parameters that doctors use to register health and degeneration such as cholesterol levels, fasting blood sugar, insulin levels, triglycerides, blood pressure and all the rest, genuinely rejuvenating your body and de-ageing your life.

In the course of doing my research for the book I have been particularly fascinated by the work done by two brilliant, yet practical American scientists, Irwin H. Rosenberg M.D., and William J. Evans Ph.D., who got together at the United States Department of Agriculture of Human Nutrition Research Centre on aging at Tufts University. In the late 90’s they made age research history by establishing objective measurements of vitality in the body which they called the Biomarkers. The work of Evans and Rosenberg is nothing short of revolutionary and quite surprising in many ways. These biomarkers of vitality are biomarkers that can be used to accurately and simply measure your biological age rather than your chronological one. It was many of these biomarkers that we used in the documentary TO AGE OR NOT TO AGE. Here are the ten big biomarkers:

• Lean body mass
• Muscle strength
• Basal metabolic rate ( BMR)
• Body fat percentage
• Aerobic capacity
• Insulin sensitivity/blood sugar tolerance
• Cholesterol/HDL ratio
• Blood Pressure
• Bone Density
• Body’s ability to regulate its internal temperature

By taking these measurements and then using either the INSULIN BALANCE or KETOGENIC programs (see THE X-FACTOR DIET to be published in January 2002 for full details) you can actually measure your progress in de-aging the body. For as you work with the programs you will not only see rejuvenation take place and feel subjectively how much younger and more vital you have become, you will actually be able to see external verification of this remarkable rejuvenation happening to you.

And what is the most important biomarker of all? This is likely to surprise you - your lean body mass. Body composition really matters. Your body is made up of two different kinds of tissue: body fat – scientifically known as adipose tissue – and lean body mass. In the lean body mass category scientists put everything that is not fat. This includes your bones, all of your tissues built of proteins such as your organs, your central nervous system and finally, as well as most important of all, your muscles. Muscle breeds vitality, fat undermines it. Adipose tissue, that is stored fat, is metabolically inactive. Its primary purpose is to store energy for times of famine so humans can survive through lean times until food is available again. People, who like me, have inherited what is known as the thrifty gene, have a genetic tendency to store fat. Our ancestors were the ones that lasted through those long cold winters while everyone else was dying of starvation. The trouble is, the thrifty gene is not of great benefit to those of us now in developed countries who are not starving. We have an abundance of seductive goods begging for us to eat them, so we do. And the fact we tend as a result to store the excessive fats in our bodies makes us highly prone to degenerative diseases and accelerated aging But it is not just people who are overweight that carry a lot of fat. Many thin people – particularly women who have been on and off low calorie, low fat diets – have a very high percentage of fats. One of the women that we worked with on the documentary TO AGE OR NOT TO AGE was in no way overweight yet her percentage of body fat was 38%, well into the accelerated aging category. She worked hard using the KETOGENIC diet as well as consistent weight training to build muscle mass and in the last three months has not only transformed her body but as I hear from her – her whole life - becoming a more dynamic, more self directed and happy human being. In addition to information as how to work with the Biomarkers to protect from accelerated aging and to reverse age caused damage, in AGE POWER I’m also looking at the use of high tech natural hormones, brain enhancers, and a thousand other things. At this point in the writing of it I have absolutely no idea how it is all going to fit together but then that is not an unusual experience for me. Doing this kind of research and writing is like throwing yourself into a sea and learning to swim. It is a challenge but an exciting one.

I’m looking forward to September and October in London and in west Wales where I will be teaching my Journey to Freedom workshops as well as giving several talks on health. Most exciting of all, for me, as soon as I’ve finished the Age Power manuscript, I move on to completing my second novel, Selkie, to be published by Harper Collins in 2002 or 2003. I intend to write a great deal more fiction including my first film script next year. Warm wishes to all of you. I hope September turns out to be a good one for you.

Leslie