Hormones - who doesn't have some problems with them? The thing is, that with increasing life span, there can be still many more problems with appropriate hormonal balance. Why does our body doesn't want to cooperate with us in that matter? Check our today's article to know why!
Approach of medicine to the aging process:
For many years the development of the 20th century medicine, and in particular the leftist faction of its theoreticians - changes in the human organism, related to age, were simply negated. Differences in health status of the 20 and 80-year-olds were explained as a result of the disease, and in popular journals there was an interview with a well-known scientist claiming that if we were not sick - human life should last 200-250 years.
At the beginning of my work, there was a concept of death in the International Classification of Diseases and the Causes of Death, with no information about illness. In subsequent revisions of this classification - this concept has been eliminated - now everyone has to die of “something”, the obligation to detect this something rests on the doctor who states death. This may be in accordance with the assumptions of statistics, but not consistent with the so-called life in which the most people age, not diseased with anything specific. In this case, the search for the cause of death in a deceased person older than the non-ill is an art for the art of questionable sensibility.
Negating age-related changes is enthusiastically supported by the mass media and the show business. A great example is the story of many movie stars, with the example of Raquel Welch. This star born in 1940 is a living proof of the absence of any age-related changes. As this artist claims – it’s owed only to natural methods, and above all, a frequent use of carrots.
Leaving behind the claims of Divine Raquel about carrots and natural methods as difficult to verify – the voices of sceptics, practitioners, and scientists free from left-wing prejudices or commercial pressures begin to prevail. Changes related to age indeed exist, and must appear. Here are some of the many arguments in support of the thesis:
- First of all, the phenomenon of apoptosis - that is programmed cell death - the majority of cells in our body must once die, and not all organs have the ability to regenerate and restore specialist cells from the pool of stem cells (non-specialized).
- Secondly, there are processes such as atherosclerosis (changes related to vascular disorders and deposition of cholesterol deposits) that need to appear, which have negative health consequences because there are no effective natural protective mechanisms.
- Thirdly, many systems change their functioning depending on their age - and here we come to the endocrine system (hormonal)
The processes of aging in the hormonal system
In the functioning of the endocrine system we initially observe changes related to growth, development and puberty. At the end of this stage and about 20-year stable period of functioning of the hormonal system occurs the phenomenon of reduction of activity of some glands. These changes include:
- somatopause - reduction of growth hormone secretion by the pituitary gland
- andropause - a decrease in the secretion of adrenal androgens
- menopause and andropause - decreased gonadal activity.
- Calcium-phosphate disturbances associated with decreased ability to synthesize vitamin D under ultraviolet light.
Needless to say, the consequences of these processes are often negative and perceived as troublesome. How should we refer to age-related health changes? Reconciled with the fate and nothing to do in this matter? Or perhaps try to completely deny them like Raquel with the help of "natural" pseudo-health and cosmetic methods?
Basic principles of delaying the impact of aging on the body
Fortunately, modern medicine has already cleared up a lot of doubts and has given a real weapon (and not just carrots) in the fight against certain processes related to aging.
First of all we need to determine what a healthy action is - so it’s not denying the influence of aging and hiding changes with cosmetic effects. The pro-health action is to delay the mechanisms of aging to the extent that we can do so without undue risk of worsening of health. First and foremost, it’s worth mentioning the delayed atherosclerosis - the use of the Mediterranean diet and, in justified cases, cholesterol lowering drugs.
Endocrine aspects of "good" aging:
In the field of endocrinology, positive (in most) negative and (sometimes) negative consequences of hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women are well documented.
As an endocrinologist-internist I will not deal further with this issue by giving up space to fellow gynaecologists. I will try to write about some other neglected endocrine consequences of the aging process such as somatopause, adrenopause and andropause, calcium-phosphate disturbances, the importance of these processes, the purposefulness and the ability to reverse their negative effects.
