Ageing

There are two certainties in life, Birth and Death, what happen in between is in your hands.

With each passing day, you age. Perhaps you notice a wrinkle here, a gray hair there, an ache, a pain or a little bulge somewhere.

While you see the visible signs on the surface, beneath the skin there are telltale signs as well. Physiological studies have shown that your cardiac, pulmonary, musculoskeletal and brain functions are also declining as you become older. As time passes, minor damage mounts up and cells, organs and systems simply wear out.

One of the first systems that wears out is the endocrine system, the glands that secrete hormones. Many researchers believe, that the primary reason we deteriorate as we age is due to the degeneration of the endocrine system. Furthermore, the function of the immune systemgenerally follows the function of the endocrine system. For example, the productions of critically important hormones, such as growth hormones, begin to drop off around age 30. The implications of this growth hormone decline are very disturbing; HGH is vitally important in helping you feel energetic, to repair your muscles and other tissues and to retain strong immunity.

Other endocrine glands are especially vulnerable to ageing. The pineal gland, which produces the sleep hormone melatonin, quickly declines with age, until it generally becomes calcified and completely dysfunctional in most elderly people. It is believed that this decline contributes significantly to the increase in sleep disorders that occurs with aging. Melatonin is also a powerful antioxidant and free-radical scavenger so the decline of the pineal also contributes to an overall decrease in health.

Similarly, the extremely important steroid hormone, DHEA, drops off considerably with time and this decline causes innumerable problems. DHEA helps protect the body from stress and is vitally important for maintaining a good mood, a normal sex drive, a stable body fat ratio and a high level of energy. DHEA is also important to protect against the ravages of the stress hormone cortisone, which when elevated can lead to a decline in immunity, memory loss and accelerated aging.

Unbalanced stress in your life also causes the hypothalamus, a gland thought of by many doctors as the "brain's brain," to decline in function. As the hypothalamus declines it becomes far less adept at perfectly responding to minor imbalances. Sometimes it calls for the production of too few hormones and sometimes too many. In effect, it loses its elasticity and flexibility. Moreover, this degeneration triggers dysfunction of the rest of the endocrine system, which causes damage to the body and the mind. Fat clings to the abdomen. Skin loses its suppleness. Memories fade. Viruses go unopposed. Eye muscles lose their focus. Immunity wanes. Sex drive declines. Ageing runs rampant.

Ageing though is not the only problem caused by the decline of the endocrine system. The same factors that cause aging reduce quality of life and health in young people. You don't need to be old to have poor immunity, impaired eyesight, low energy, depression, insomnia, decreased sex drive, poor muscle tone, hypoglycemia, obesity, muscle pain, impaired cognitive function or any other of the many problems associated with endocrine decline. These problems are more prevalent among the elderly but are absolutely common among young people. Unfortunately, many of them appear to be increasingly common among younger patients. Two of the most obvious are depression and obesity, which are now at their highest rates in history among the young. Remember, old age doesn't suddenly swoop down at 60; ging starts early, especially if you subject your body and brain to one physical and emotional assault after another.

There is no easy way out, therefore our aim at E-Gym is to give you the tools to help slow down the ageing clock.