In 2009, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three scientists for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase. Telomeres are nucleoprotein caps, which protect the ends of human chromosomes, and telomerase is the enzyme involved in their repair. Recent research has shown an essential link between telomere length and telomerase activity to the aging process and age-related disease, as well as to a healthy lifespan. Particularly exciting is the connection between lifestyle interventions and both telomere integrity and telomerase activity, providing a mechanism by which behaviors may both prevent degenerative disease and slow the aging process.

A pregnant woman’s health, nutritional status and toxic load have a profound impact on the health of the fetus she is nurturing. Books have been written on each of these important topics, but space limitations allow me to only address a few here. While everyone seems to appreciate the importance of adequate amounts of folic acid, few seem to be paying enough attention to vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, iodine and choline.

In the late 1970s, a young couple brought their son to me for help with his chronic ear infections. They were tired of repeated antibiotic treatments since his infections just kept recurring. When their family MD found out they were seeing a naturopath and not using antibiotics again, he reported them to child protective services. Child protective services took their son from them asserting that not using antibiotics was child abuse. Fortunately, the husband was an attorney, but it still took more than a month to get their now traumatized son back. I am willing to give the MD the benefit of the doubt that it was concern for the child rather than injured pride that dictated his actions. But he was wrong.

Over the past decade there has been a lot of research and public articles about the safety and efficacy of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for women. We now know that horse-derived hormones are not good for women. While they experience benefit in terms of sexual function and bone density, these are overwhelmed by the 30-50 percent increase in breast cancer and other adverse effects of these abnormal hormones.(1) The good news appears to be that when the horse hormones are stopped, a woman''s increased risk of breast cancer rapidly drops to normal after a few years. Bioidentical hormones (i.e., human rather than horse hormones) make a lot of sense and appear to be much safer.

One of the primary reasons we age is the progressive damage to our nuclear DNA. As the DNA becomes damaged - typically from oxidative stress or replication errors - its signaling for the production of enzymes and other cellular functions starts developing errors. As these errors accumulate, cellular function declines - hence the common experience of declining health and vitality at older ages.