HOW OLD ARE YOU REALLY? IT ALL STARTED WHEN BOOMERS WORE NAPPIES
IN the 1950’s, when the first baby boomers were graduating to training pants and leaving strained baby food behind forever, researchers began to look for the secret to measuring biological age. They wondered why some people were doing the limbo on cruise ships at sixty while others were dismal, set in their ways and old at forty. Why, they asked, were some thirty-year-olds, as measured by the calendar, old before their years and some winning marathons? Why, they asked, were some fifty-year-olds enjoying vigorous second, third and even fourth honeymoons, while others of the same calendar age are shuffling around in ratty robes, unable to remember the last time they enjoyed the crunch of an apple, the thrill of an adventure, or the warm satisfaction of making love?
And so they began to look for the clues beyond the seasons, the anniversaries and the calendar that would unlock the secrets of true age. What were these magic measuremenrs? Was there a pattern? And most importantly, could these measurements of true age be manipulated? Could the relentless clock of nature be forced to run backwards, away from the linear measure of time and back into the biological state of youth?
It was in Canada that a major breakthrough was finally made. Around the time that the Beatles were shattering our views of music and flower power was mightier than guns, Dr. Robert Morgan devised a standardized test for measuring biological age. He called this instrument the Adult Growth Examination (AGE) and his is the distinction of formulating one of the most accurate ways for us to determine how old we really are. Dr. Morgan's test involved only three simple measurements based on physiology: blood pressure, near-vision blurring and high-frequency hearing.
In the ensuing years other scientists added to this test and discovered other body function measurements of age. In the mid-1980s researchers at the Canadian Institute of Stress modified these measurements and in a remarkable study tested 623 people who measured biologically older than their calendar age by as much as ten years or more. They then went on to show that these subjects could reverse their personal march of time, cheat the calendar, fool the clock and become younger—not just younger by a year or two, but younger by ten, twenty and even twenty-five years! Their findings are mind-boggling:
- You can reduce your biological age, or body age.
- You can look younger.
- You can feel better.
- Although premature or accelerated ageing can take place at any stage of life, it is most prevalent among people in their prime.
- People in their fifties and sixties are as able to lower their body as people in their thirties or forties.
Over the next decade others would add to this research so that today we are able, without expensive equipment, complicated formulas all complex testing methods, to determine for ourselves, in the privacy of our own homes, exactly how old we are.
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