Here is your chance to attend a live talk by nationally-recognized Age Management Specialist, Dr. Mickey Barber.

Dr. Mickey Barber will discuss the importance of an integrated approach to maintaining your healthy edge and will focus on how you can be proactive in living a better life today. Please join Dr. Barber and learn how to tackle the aging process head on!

Title: Stop the Clock – Slowing the Aging Process

Date: Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Time: 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM EDT

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So unfortunately, we have another diet myth busted, and is demonstrated once again that there is no magic pill. Though it was demonstrated rather well that a 500 calorie/day diet is very effective for weight loss. This is of course, unreasonable for any extended period of time, and based on other research, I would suggest that quite a bit of muscle was lost, but effective none the less.

Until a magic pill is actually discovered, my advice is to keep your diet relatively strict (reasonably so) and try to get at least 20 minutes of daily exercise. Eat lots of vegetables and most importantly, listen to your body and try to feed it what it responds to, as everyone’s body is different.

Live Strong

First, what are the proposed advantages of adding HCG, in small daily doses, to a diet? Supposedly it has an appetite suppressing effect. This is great if it is true, as it would make sticking to the diet much easier. I always tell patients “calories effect your weight, the type of calories will decide what the weight looks like”, which means that if you want to drop weight (and do not care if it is fat or muscle), drop your calories. If you want to loose a lot of weight quickly, you aren’t particularly concerned with your long term health, cutting your calories to 500 per day will certainly do the trick. In this instance, anything that suppresses appetite will help.

So question is: “Does HCG actually suppress appetite?”. The answer….maybe. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that HCG, when directly introduced to a cell, does increase Leptin. Leptin is a hormone that tells you that you are satisfied and encourages fat to be burned as energy. A few studies even suggest the when directly introduced to fatty tumors, cell size is reduced. This is very promising and does suggest that HCG would aid in achieving the desired results, assuming that it has the same effects when used systemically (effect on entire body).

That is the question that we will address in part 3: Does HCG have a systemic benefit for weight loss?

What is the HCG diet anyways? As far as that goes, what is HCG? HCG is also known as Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, and is a hormone that has similar function to Luteinizing Hormone (it has many functions including increasing testosterone). The diet incorporates a very low dose of daily HCG with a very strict 500 calorie per day diet. In addition to an ultra low calorie diet with virtually no fat intake, lotions or creams containing lipids are not allowed either. As you can imagine, the diet alone will result in quite a bit of weight loss (with or without exercise).

According to the sources, the addition of the daily HCG will help curb hunger and may reduce the typical metabolism reduction associated an extremely low calorie diet.

In my next post, I will discuss the science behind these claims. As you can imagine, with anything that is half of a century old, there is plenty to discuss.

Internally, the body looks even worse. As hormone levels change, and time and stress take their toll, the body’s well-being diminishes. A build-up of fat and loss of energy leads to higher blood pressure and cholesterol. The heart grows weaker, and even the brain loses its function. Bones get brittle and dowager’s humps form. And the risk for diseases such as cancer, hypertension, and diabetes skyrockets. Ugh.

The good news is that science is making the aging process a lot easier to deal with, inside and out. Americans spend billions of dollars each year fighting the effects of getting old…

Read the full article here.

Names of sports heroes

Dr. Barber, CEO of Cenegenics South Carolina an age management institute based in Charleston, “says With John McCain, who if elected would serve as the oldest president ever in office, and Barack Obama, one of the youngest candidates to run, the issue of health and aging is front and center in this election.”

She offers this advice to the next Commander in Chief to avoid accelerated aging:
“Hormone levels are something traditional doctors typically do not monitor yet if they are less than optimal it can have dramatic impacts on your mental emotional and physical health ” says Dr. Barber. “Obama for example has a family history of prostate cancer. The lower your testosterone levels the more aggressive prostate cancer can be which is a good reason he should have his hormones checked.”

Balance Your Hormones
She also notes that McCain’s verbal gaffes, which have been attributed to age, could also be due to unbalanced hormone levels. “Common effect of unbalanced hormone levels can be poor memory and recall ” explains Dr. Barber.” Just because he is 71 doesn’t mean he has to be forgetful or in poor health.”

Find Time for Romance
“One of the key indicators of good health is regular sex ” says Dr. Barber. “We can deduce a lot just from the answer to the question “˜How is your sex life?” She recommends both candidates make time in their busy schedule for physical interaction with their spouses which she notes has both physical and of course emotional benefits.

Drink Half Your Weight in Water
“It sounds like a lot but these men probably should drink half their body weight in ounces of water a day ” says Dr. Barber. And with our Commander in Chief spending significant time on Air Force One it’s even more important to remain hydrated. Dr. Barber notes that for every hour of flying time a person should drink eight ounces of water.

Get Sweaty
“Thirty minutes of exercise a day will give them extra energy and boost their immune systems”, says Dr. Barber. “Whether you’re a busy executive, like many of my patients, or President of the United States, energy is an absolute must just to complete everything that needs to get done in a day.”

She points out that the current president is a great example of someone who has aged well, thanks in part to physical fitness. “President Bush has always made time for exercise and relaxation two key contributors to health and vitality” she says. “And it shows. He’s in great shape and has not aged so dramatically over his eight years in office.”

Unfortunately, says Dr. Barber, Bush is not typical. Many presidents, such as Bill Clinton who had heart bypass surgery several years ago, experience a decline in health while in office. “Bill Clinton was a walking disaster with an expanding waistline and poor eating habits, she says. “An ounce of prevention, the philosophy we maintain at Cenegenics, could likely have stopped such serious heart problems.”

Says Dr. Barber, “I just hope that whoever wins in November will enjoy the same level of health and vitality that our patients experience through Cenegenics. By making these simple changes in their lives, I hope this will chart a healthy course for their future, and thus our country’s.”

About Cenegenics Carolinas
Cenegenics Carolinas is a Charleston-based medical institute that helps patients manage the aging process through a customized regimen of exercise nutrition and hormone optimization to improve their quality of life and feel healthy and years younger than their age. Headed by CEO Mickey Barber, MD, a board-certified anesthesiologist and former assistant professor at Tulane University Cenegenics Carolinas is one of only five Cenegenics centers in the country. For more information, call 843-724-7272 or visit www.cenegenics-carolinas.com.

Dr. Jeffry S. Life, who will turn 70 this year, promotes Cenegenics Medical Institute, which specializes in “age management medicine.”

Life was at the Charleston Cenegenics office Tuesday to meet with some of his fellow chief medical officers from other regions.

Five Cenegenics locations are in the U.S. and plans are taking shape for international sites.

“There’s no way of stopping aging, but we slow down the diseases of aging,” said Life, who traded the easy, weight-room air of a man often inclined to remove his shirt for the demeanor of a professional physician.

The downtown office, in the tower above Saks Fifth Avenue, is crisp and modern. Frosted glass, sleek furniture and cork floor suggests Cenegenics is for people of a certain income.

Dr. Michale “Mickey” Barber, who opened the Charleston office five years ago, does not flinch at the term “concierge medicine.”

“We are certainly a five-star service,” Barber said. She has seen more than 100 percent growth in business in the last year.

For $2,995, patients receive a seven-hour health evaluation that includes bone-density testing and a full lab work-up of 90 different tests. Fitness, strength and cognitive function are also measured. No forms of insurance are accepted.

To get people in top form and keep them there, Cenegenics doctors prescribe exercise routines, vitamins and “hormone optimization”

The study published in Volume 2008 of the Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, followed 91 men and 97 women ages 25 to 82, who were treated for clinically-documented hormone deficiencies testosterone and/or growth hormones at Cenegenics Medical Institute in Las Vegas over a three-year period.
The results showed improvement in mood and quality of life, along with increased lean body mass, decreased fat and increased bone density in men and women across a wide age range. These improvements can stave off coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and bone fractures, while improving strength and coordination, according to the study. The study found the treatments were generally safe and well tolerated.

This information isn’t surprising to Dr. Mickey Barber, CEO of Cenegenics Carolinas located in Charleston, S.C. Cenegenics is a preventive health and age management medical institute that helps patients improve quality of life and feel years younger through a customized regimen of exercise nutrition, vitamin and mineral supplementation and hormone optimization.

“We know appropriate use of hormones can be incredibly beneficial to patients who have hormone deficiencies, ” says Dr. Barberm, a board-certified anesthesiologist and former assistant professor at Tulane University. “I’ve personally seen the results in my patients for years. When combined with proper nutrition and exercise, hormones can significantly improve a person’s quality of life helping them feel great as they age.”

But hormones “like many medically appropriate drugs” can be abused. Some professional athletes take human growth hormone in large amounts as a way to build muscle mass and have found negative side effects.

“Unfortunately, misuse of hormones has given this medical treatment negative attention,” Barber said. “It’s encouraging to see this latest study reinforces the potential benefits of growth hormone and testosterone when used appropriately and under medical supervision as we do here at Cenegenics.”

The research was funded by Cenegenics Education and Research Foundation the nonprofit arm of Cenegenics Medical Institute, in conjunction with two recognized professors from the University of Miami – Miller School of Medicine, Drs. Enrique Ginzburg and Nancy Klimas.

This is the first phase in a three-phase outcome study. Phase two will look at overall safety issues with regards to tumor formation as compared to a normal population.

The Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare is a peer-reviewed, online scientific journal of Dove Open Access. The study is called “Testosterone and growth hormone normalization: a retrospective study of health outcomes.”