Julie McCallen, MD Age Management

BEING A MAN OR A WOMAN “of a certain age” as they say in mainstream magazines, doesn’t mean you need to slap on an estrogen patch or load up on Viagra to have a life. Nor does it mean you should turn into a couch potato of ever-increasing girth while you tune in to TV, tune out on life, and sit there, vegetating, waiting to die. You do have alternatives.

In our grandparents’ day, based on a more agrarian existance, life was difficult, and the infant death rate high. But if you survived the early years, you developed natural immunities, worked hard, ate fairly nutritious food, and stayed active right up to the end. In our parent’s time, the phrase “growing old gracefully” gained a certain popularity. It acknowledged the gradual decline of physical and mental health starting with the birth of the first grandchild and ending at the funeral home. It was a grim, but inevitable process—from rocking chair to wheel chair to hospital bed and finally, the coffin. Of course, there were TV and TV dinners to help ease you through the transition. Perhaps there’s a message there?

Our generation puts a new twist on the aging process. We call it “Age Management.”

What does that mean? Not knowing, you might envision a sort of corporate management structure, perhaps with a CEO, mid-level managers and a string of front line folks all tasked with categorizing people by age and ensuring that they behave accordingly. Well, that’s close, except with an age management program, you determine, direct, and play all the roles (although you will need a “coach” generally in the form of a physician). With this enlightened program, designed for you and by you with the help of your “coach,” you can truly take control of your life, and figure out, health-wise, how to live it to the fullest, right to the very end. You’re still going to die, of course, but you don’t have to go through half your life half dead waiting to do it.

The old life model looked something like a line (representing aging), which is fairly horizontal from birth until about age 40, then gradually declines—with sharp dips for angst and illness, until the final event of death. You waited until you got sick, then you sought treatment for your illness. The new model (represented by the green-shaded area in the chart to the right) is vastly different. It is proactive rather than reactive. As illustrated by this chart, life-threatening health "incidents" such as obesity, diabetes, even cancer and stroke, can be prevented with a proactive Age Management program. We can deliberately lengthen that horizontal line of good health and prevent the long, gradual decline—we call that extending “healthspan”—by aggressively taking control of health risk factors, thus preventing sickness rather than expecting it as inevitable.

Is this possible? Absolutely.

Is it expensive? Not really. Not when compared to the cost of prescription drugs, surgeries, endless tests and treatments, home health-care, follow-up doctors’ appointments, and loss of income, dignity, and quality of life because all your efforts go to “preserving” life and treating ailments rather than “living” life and enjoying it. How can you NOT choose to take this path?

That said, what exactly is Age Management?

It’s an individually designed program of nutrition, supplements, exercise, and bio-identical hormone balancing designed to increase vitality, cognitive function, and physicality. In layman’s terms, it’s a program to make you look good, think better, and feel great! And it works!

How do you get involved? This is not about going to the health food store and stocking up on supplements. It’s more than signing up at the gym to work off those extra pounds put on over the winter. (Although both activities can certainly be a part of your program). Age Management is about making a serious commitment to a healthy way of living your life—for the REST of your life. To help you do that, there are conventional physicians (and certain alternative practitioners) who specialize in this field. And, as our population increases and more people become aware of the very obvious benefits of increased prolonged vitality, the number of those practicing this kind of medicine will increase.

JULIE MC CALLEN, MD
One who has made Age Management Medicine her specialty for several years is Dr. Julie McCallen of Norwood, Colorado. “It’s a selective area of medicine,” she explains. “You have to want to be healthy. You can get to a certain place with nutrition and exercise, but you can’t get all the way. You still need corrective hormone therapy.” Most important, you need a program to combine all three, and a coach to help you monitor your progress.

Dr. Julie, an affiliate of the renowned Cenegenics Medical Institute, and prescribing practioner of the Wiley Protocol, begins new-patient treatment sessions with an in-depth analysis. She spends a great deal of time with you asking questions about lifestyle, life goals, and of course, past health history. She does a full workup up of all your systems, with blood and urine tests that reveal everything about your current state of health, and where you’re going if corrective measures aren’t taken. Then, she helps you design a program to take charge of your health and your life.

"It’s odd how few people actually choose to do this," Dr. Julie notes. “People are more likely to buy a new car or take a vacation than they are to aggressively tackle their own health care,” she says. “Yet, your risk for the most common killers—heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer—are greatly reduced if you prevent the things that cause them.” Why wait until after you’ve been hauled off to the hospital following a stroke or a coronary before you take control of your health? One of the most common contributors to heart disease and Alzheimer’s is easily preventable: central obesity—belly fat, beer gut, whatever you call it, which can easily be avoided with good nutrition, adequate exercise, and healthy hormone levels—your own personal Age Management program.

Aging is a process that begins at birth and ends in death. For many of us, there is a pre-conceived notion that the last 40 years of our lives (maybe even the last 60 or more, if you ascribe to revised life-expectency charts) is a downhill race, going faster as we get closer to the bottom. We accept that we’ll get fat, lose our memory, and some of our hair, suffer from failing vision, and swollen joints.

Why? Where is it written that we have to accept this? Or want it?

Why not look into an Age Management program designed with you and for you to make the latter years of your life just as vital, and yes! even more fun and productive than the earlier years? Aging doesn't have to mean a miserable and long decline to death. It can and should be a chance to improve the quality of your life, to learn new things, enjoy new experiences and expand your horizons.

It’s never too late to get started on your own Age Management program. What are you waiting for?

Dr. Julie A McCallen MD, Proactive Health Management PLLC, Norwood Family Medicine, PC
Norwood, CO, Phone: (970) 327-4470, www.cenegenics-drmccallen.com