Aging, what can we do?

As time goes by it is normal to think "What can we do to keep us looking young?" So: "What can we do?"
There is plastic surgery ( and it works!!!):

• Botox it's accessible, (but truth be told I don't like a bit how it looks on an old skin);
• there are some promises with hyaluronic acid  
• face lifting classic or with absorbable stitches.

But if I want to postpone plastic surgery as late as possible, even I'm not at all against it?I 'm a doctor and I don't buy bullshit without a scientific research or at least some logic explanation. But something caught  my attention, there are some promising studies and it's not harmful so I have nothing to lose.
 I' m 35, I have two kids, I don't smoke, I'm physical active and people don't say I look older than 25 and I would like to keep it that way.

I was a skinny kid/ adolescent and I was ashamed to wear dresses, I wanted to gain weight and suddenly this happened between 23 and 29, especially after I was 25 years old. I started my residency I was stressed, preoccupied learning as much as I could to become a good  doctor, on calls I was snacking a lot all the time and drinking juice. I didn't become obese, I wasn't even overweight but I  was not looking good even I was working out. I saw photos with me from earlier years and the comparison wasn't in my favor and  I wanted  be like that  again. My husband always told me the truth how he saw it even it was hard to hear, but I like that, it shows that he cares. In the the fall of 2012 I decided that something has to be done. Diet and nutrition weren't my domain of interest, I knew some things from college, but I never needed to worry about weight. And when I thought to take care of my eating habits I came upon a BBC documentary " Eat, fast and live longer" with Michael Mosley about intermittent fasting.(1)
 People have been fasting for thousands of years, we are built to live like that, when we depended on hunt for food. Later studies suggested that even the children and grandchildren will be healthier if there are short periods of famine, phenomenon explained by epigenetics.(2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
 There are several ways to do that:

• 16-20 hours  fasting and 4-8 hours of eating every day 16/8 or
•  500 calories per day,2 days a week, or
• eating once in 24 hours as many times as a person can do in a week, every week
•  or long periods of fasting ( that needs doctor supervisions\ because it is the risk of electolyte imbalance) and then repeat the process after couple of months.
   I feel the need to add that fasting means no food or drink except water, a cup of coffee or tea without sugar, sweeteners or honey, not even beverages with zero calories. 

I started  it  with some pauses when I was pregnant with my son,  then with my daughter I was fasting about 12-14 hours per day. I breastfed both my kids more than a year doing that,without any sides effects ( but I don't encourage) .
It's a lifestyle, healthy one and I keep doing for his benefits, not just for the fact that I am skinny and smoking hot.
 The worst enemies for youth are the sun and the food.  Our chromosomes, witch carry the genetic code have at the end of what we call telomeres,like a cap, that protect the chromosome. There are sequences of nucleotides , that repet themselves a couple of thousands times . With every division of the cells these telomeres shorten. It is believed that this is implicated in aging and some cancers like melanoma. UVA radiation is doing just that, on top of oxidative stress. UVB radiation induces inflammation, breaks some covalent bonds and forms some dimers that distort the normal structure of DNA making it susceptible for mutation. Plus weakening of the collagen of the skin , that keeps the skin firm, leads to wrinkles. The best face cream is the sunscreen cream applied every day. (7)
 When we fast our body tends to conserve, so division  it's not an option, only if it is necessary. The organism's mane focus is to repair and destroy what is unnecessary ( autophagy), like:(8)  (9)

•  bad proteins in the brain and used them for gluconeogenesis,
•  unhealthy cells affected by oxidative stress and it stops the process of oxidative free radicals that can damage other cells,
• extra cells from a flappy skin,
•  cancerous cells 

More articles about intermittent fasting will come, because it is a subject I am fond of and it really works for losing weight at least, it costs you nothing, actually you save money. You need to adjust to the idea of being hungry, but also you need to know that that sensations comes and goes and it gets easier with time.
dr. Mirabela Cascaval