Longevity Research

How Important Attitude Can Be For Your Longevity

posted on March 24, 2008

Last week, I wrote about how important attitude can be for your longevity and how your diet, drugs, supplements and supplemental hormones can affect your attitude.

Now I’d like to tell you two personal stories that illustrate how big an impact some of these can have on you.

Several years ago, I slid into a deep funk. It happened over a period of a week or so… and lingered for a couple of weeks before I discovered what caused it. During those weeks, I could barely get out of bed. All I wanted to do was sleep. I had no energy or motivation and got to the low point where I didn’t care if I lived or died.

Now that was a major event in my life, since I am Mr. “do everything you can do to stay alive”. The only time I experienced that kind of negativity was after a spinal cord injury paralyzed me. It took me a good while to turn my attitude around then. But in some ways, this was even worse.  I had no idea what was happening to me and finally went to a lab to get a blood panel done. The results were startling. My liver enzymes were off the charts, and my hormones were way out of whack. I supplement with fairly high doses of niacin, so my liver enzymes gave me a clue.  I changed niacin brands a month or two earlier and dug out one of my new niacin bottles. What I discovered blew my mind.

The old niacin tablets were 100mg. The new capsules were 1000! 10 times the dosage… and I was taking several capsules 3 times a day. (I didn’t notice the increased dosage, because I dump my supplements out of the bottles into a convenient vitamin case.) Then I stopped taking niacin altogether and within a few days, I was completely back to normal with my previously positive attitude intact. I’m back to my original dosage now but with it all bundled into one daily dose. I also found out spreading niacin out during the day can be tough on your liver.

Story #2

I knew a woman who would wake up mad at the world and go to sleep madder yet. Almost everyone who crossed her path, even slightly out of line, would incur her wrath. You did not want to be near her. Any sane person would avoid her like the plague after one close encounter.

Then an interesting thing happened. She changed. Now she wakes up with a song in her heart and with nice words for all (well almost all). She’s happy, pleasant to be around and no longer a threat to fragile egos.

As it turns out, she was, shall we say, hormonally challenged. She too had some blood work done. And her results were startling as well. Her hormones were so far off balance that her physician said hers was an extreme example of a common malady. But he tamed the beast with simple hormone replacement therapy.

These two examples show how reducing a supplement got my hormones, and my attitude, under control and how taking supplements (hormones) got my friend’s hormones, and her attitude, under control.

These illustrations are two good reasons to see an anti-aging physician who is qualified to check and monitor your hormone balances. It’s not just for women. As men age, they typically suffer from abnormal hormone levels too, which in turn affect attitudes, vitality and even body shape.

So as I said last week, your attitude, which could affect your longevity, can stem from what you put in your mouth and from out of balance hormones. There’s more to attitude than just managing your thoughts. Stay positive, live long and prosper.

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