Transcription:
Anti Aging Medicine

Melanie Cole (Host): Our life expectancy has increased. Due to advances in medical science, today’s healthcare challenges must be met by those who understand what the body’s processes are that generate health and disease. My guest today is Dr. Eugene Rajaratnam. He’s a board-certified urologist, board certified in anti-aging and regenerative medicine and he’s a member of the medical staff at Palmdale Regional Medical Center. Dr. Raj, Leon Trotsky said, “old age is the most unexpected of all things that happens to man” and when you listen to that, you hear that statement, you say wow, it’s true, as we get older, all of these things are unexpected. Tell us a little bit about what you do. What is anti-aging medicine?

Gene Rajaratnam, MD (Guest): Well before we talk about anti-aging; let’s talk about aging. Okay? Aging is inevitable. We have been told you got to age gracefully and all that, but what happens if to most of us here is that, that is reduced, and you actually age a lot faster these days and the first time in history, people are not living as long as they should. You would think with all the technology in America we would live longer. Actually, our lifespan is reduced significantly. It could be from various things what we call epigenetics, the environment, there is the toxins, your lifestyle, what you eat, bad nutrition, taking too many medications and being kind of lax in your aging process. You know you kind of accept things. You get out of shape and you think it’s okay, it’s aging, and you get a fat belly, that’s okay. Or you start taking a bunch of medicines and you think that’s part of aging and it’s kind of accepted. And people are told you are prediabetic and you say okay and you think that’s normal too. You have to realize that diabetes is one of those horrible diseases that significantly reduces your lifespan. It causes all kinds of complications and increases the chance of you having a stroke and heart attack by probably 100%. So, when you are told that you are prediabetic; you have to pay attention and doctors as a whole need to not take it as oh you’re prediabetic, don’t worry about it. You really have to make sure that you never get to the next step which is diabetes. In my opinion, prediabetes is you are flirting with diabetes. Change your lifestyle. Eat better. Retard your aging process.

So, and a lot of things like even medications for example, a lot of patients are on a bunch of medicines when they come to see me as a urologist, they come with kidney stones, prostate disease, whatever and as soon as I look at them I know that these people are on a bunch of medications and this is very common. You know they have high blood pressure, so they are on diuretics, beta blockers, ace inhibitors, and all kinds of medicines that really reduce nutrients in your body, they deplete nutrients like let’s say for example, diuretics. They decrease magnesium, potassium, folate, B6 vitamins, B12, thiamine and selenium. An increase in homocysteine which is another bad thing to have. Beta blockers they decrease what you call CoQ10. Ace inhibitors decrease zinc. And ARP’s again, blood pressure medications decreases zinc as well and statins. Everybody seems to be on statins. Almost like Kool-Aid. Everybody should be on a statin and aspirin. I don’t think so because all these medicines have side effects. What you need to do when you get a medication prescribed, ask the doctors please tell me the side effects. These days you don’t have to go to a PDR and open this big fat book to look at it. Just Google it and it will tell you all the complications or side effects of medications. Statins especially, they reduce CoQ10, selenium, omega 3, fatty acids, vitamin E, vitamin A, carnitine, and free D3 which is a very important thyroid medication.

And you wonder why so many people have low hormones. It is induced by number one aging, number two it is aggravated by all the medicines people take. And it’s undiagnosed or poorly diagnosed and we also have to do the right kind of blood tests when you see a patient. You know just doing a CBC and a chem panel and a coag profile is I think very inadequate because most people those things are normal unless you are really sick. So, you have to look at things like hormone levels and you have to do the right hormone levels. Number one you have to check the thyroid levels like TSH which is the thyroid stimulating hormone and again, and free T3 which is the real hormone. A lot of people think when you ask what’s the thyroid hormone, they say T4. It’s not, it is what you call a prohormone. So, the real hormone is T3 which is a conversion of T4 to T3 and that is affected by things like not having enough selenium, iodine, chromium, stuff like that. So, you miss hypothyroidism and also the other problem, the labs have a very wide range. Let’s say you do a T3, the lab will give you a reference range between 2.5 and say 4.5 of 5. So, if it is 2.6, you are written off as being normal. But no, you are not. You really are on the low side of normal. Hormones need to be replenished and bumped up to high levels and that happens a lot. I see young people even teenagers who are low in thyroid. Could be from toxins, could be genetic, could be familial, whatever it is. You need to pick up on it and you have to suspect it. You have to have a high level of suspicion when you see a patient. And that could be just by observation, how do they walk, are they heavy, check the weight, check their gait, look at the way they move. Are they slow? Do they think slow? Things like that. All those are signs of endocrine problems meaning low thyroid, low testosterone, low estrogen, things like that. Makes you kind of tired, weak, can’t sleep, all these things are significant problems that we don’t think about as doctors.

So, we have to really understand aging and then you go back to anti-aging. Does that make sense?

Melanie: It certainly does. So, let’s start with diet. Where does as you mentioned all of these different hormones and things that you want people to consider and look at when they are getting their blood tests instead of just the normal panel that they get; where does diet fit into this picture of aging and helping our bodies to fight some of the oxidation and free radicals?

Dr. Rajaratnam: I think nutrition is key. I tell my patients what kind of a car do you drive? I ask them. Oh, I have a whatever kind of car, right. Is it gas or diesel? Now would you ever put diesel in a gas car? You wouldn’t do that. That’s stupid. So, that’s what we do with our bodies. We give it the wrong fuel daily in and out. Okay. 

And we end up eating all kinds of garbage. And guess how it shows up? You get obese. You get lazy. You get toxic. And all these chemicals and toxins they have an affinity to stay in the fat cells. So, fat is not only bad for your body, it carries a lot of toxins. So, you want not to get fat and you want to burn fat. And when I see patients and they are overweight, it causes all kinds of diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, you are more prone to having breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, all kinds of stuff. So, you really have to watch what you put in your body.

And food is very devoid of nutrition. There are no micronutrients in your food anymore. Even if you are eating let’s say produce, right. The produce has to be clean. You don’t know what kind of produce – where it’s coming from, what kind of contamination you have. So, you really have to be almost looking for growing your own food or going to a farmer’s market and hopefully they are not lying to you and it is really organic. You know what I mean? So, it’s very important. Food is the fuel of your body. So, you feed the wrong fuel; guess what, you are going to get all kinds of illnesses. Diabetes, high blood pressure, there is also heavy metal toxicity out there in the air, in the water you drink. So, we are totally bombarded with toxins.

Melanie: Dr. Raj, wrap it up for us with your best advice about aging and the future of anti-aging medicine what you would like listeners to know; if you had to give them just one or two things that you really want them to concentrate on to make their lives better to make a healthier self, please give us your best advice.

Dr. Rajaratnam: Okay. It’s going to be more than one, one or two. Okay so first is nutrition. We talked about that. Number two, check your hormones. It’s not rocket science. As you get older, your hormones are going down and in women it’s obvious, menopause, but men go through andropause. So, as you age, your hormones are going down. Get them checked. Fix them. Go to a doctor who understands anti-aging medicine even endocrinologists don’t seem to get it. They are very careful in giving hormones. There is a lot of false news and all kinds of stuff that’s written out there that they think hormones cause cancer. It really doesn’t unless you are using synthetic hormones so stick to bioidentical hormones. So, it is nutrition, hormones, exercise, get back to your ideal weight and it is also mind, body, spirit medicine. You have to be happy. You have to know your purpose in life. And the people who know their purpose generally are happier people. They live longer. So, I see all my ninety-year-old patients that I have, they are the happiest patients. They have a good lifestyle/. They are out there exercising, and I put them on hormones. I’m not scared to give hormones to a ninety-year-old, because I think they need it. who do you think needs it? Not an 18-year-old. It’s the older people that need it so don’t be afraid of taking hormones. But go to a doctor who understands hormone replacement therapy and hopefully is bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.

Melanie: It’s great information. Thank you so much Dr. Raj, for sharing your expertise with us today and it’s such great information for listeners to hear to help us really live our best lives. You’re listening to Palmdale Regional Radio with Palmdale Regional Medical Center. For more information please visit www.palmdaleregional.com. Physicians are independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of Palmdale Regional Medical Center. The hospital shall not be liable for actions or treatments provided by physicians. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.