The fact that a person has a chronic condition is certainly important, but how he or she chooses to manage that condition is perhaps even more important. For example, if diabetes is not managed properly, a diabetic can age at twice the expected rate: He or she will experience almost two years of biological aging for each passing calendar year. However, careful management of the disease can reduce the aging effect by over 50 percent, and by as much as 80 percent. For type II diabetes (non-insulin-dependent diabetes), proper management can make manifestations of the disease virtually disappear, leaving no significant aging effect at all. Similarly, the aging effect of heart disease can be retarded by as much as 70 percent with proper vigilance, and, if the disease is diagnosed before significant structural damage occurs, the aging it causes can even be reversed. We see similar benefits of disease management for everything from kidney disease to neurologic disorders to thyroid problems. No matter what ails you, the aging damage that a chronic condition will have is always, always improved by proper management of the condition.
In fact, we should stop thinking about most of these conditions as diseases and start thinking about them as physical states of aging. States that accelerate the speed of aging. States that you can, at least, partly control.
The fact that a person has a chronic condition is certainly
important, but how he or she chooses to manage that condition is
perhaps even more important. For example, if diabetes is not
managed properly, a diabetic can age at twice the expected...
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Dr. Michael Roizen answered:The fact that a person has a chronic condition is certainly important, but how he or she chooses to manage that condition is perhaps even more important. For example, if diabetes is not managed properly, a diabetic can age at twice the expected rate: He or she will experience almost two years of biological aging for each passing calendar year. However, careful management of the disease can reduce the aging effect by over 50 percent, and by as much as 80 percent. For type II diabetes (non-insulin-dependent diabetes), proper management can make manifestations of the disease virtually disappear, leaving no significant aging effect at all. Similarly, the aging effect of heart disease can be retarded by as much as 70 percent with proper vigilance, and, if the disease is diagnosed before significant structural damage occurs, the aging it causes can even be reversed. We see similar benefits of disease management for everything from kidney disease to neurologic disorders to thyroid problems. No matter what ails you, the aging damage that a chronic condition will have is always, always improved by proper management of the condition.
