While there’s nothing we can do about our chronological age, our biological age is an entirely different matter. Based on the groundbreaking study that shaved three years off the subjects’ age in just eight weeks, Younger You: Reverse Your Bio Age and Live Longer, Better provides a proven, accessible plan to prevent the diseases of aging and reduce your biological age.
Written by Dr. Kara Fitzgerald, Younger You unveils the secrets she learned in her first-of-its-kind study, which proved you don’t need expensive, inaccessible and risky medications to reverse your biological age if you choose strategic foods and lifestyle practices.
“What we have come to understand is that most chronic diseases share a common underlying cause: aging. In fact, your biological age is the single biggest risk factor for all the major diseases, including diabetes, cancer and dementia,” Dr. Fitzgerald writes in her book. “While this may seem like a downer, there is great news here, and it is this: Research is just beginning to show that your biological age can actually move in reverse.”
Dr. Fitzgerald received her doctorate in naturopathic medicine from the National University of Natural Medicine. She lectures globally on the topic of functional medicine, is a faculty member of the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) and is an IFM Certified Practitioner with a clinical practice in Newtown, Connecticut, where she lives. She also runs Functional Medicine Clinic Immersion program for professionals and hosts the “New Frontiers in Functional Medicine” podcast.
“The choices you make every day — what you eat, when you go to bed, how stressed you are, how much you move, how much loving touch you engage in — can all negatively or positively influence how your genes are expressed,” she writes in Younger You.
Dr. Fitzgerald’s nutrition recommendations are straightforward and adaptable to other diets (keto, Mediterranean, etc.), but it’s important to remember that simply eating “healthy” is not enough. Her plan prioritizes foods that actually alter the expression of your DNA, turn on good genes, undo damage in your body and ward off aging.
“The reason our study is so exciting is that it is the very first of its kind to show that you can effect significant changes on your biological age through diet and lifestyle changes alone,” she writes. “No shots of artificial hormones. Or pharmaceuticals that are expensive and carry their own unpleasant side effects. Not even high doses of nutrients in supplement form. Just. Food. (And sleep; and exercise; and relaxation, but nothing beyond the pale of what most folks consider to be basic self-care.)”
Younger You also goes in-depth about how DNA methylation powerfully influences your epigenetic expression.
“I, like you, need any program to be doable,” Dr. Fitzgerald writes. “And while you can’t expect to have a positive, lasting effect on your DNA methylation without actually following the program, you also won’t be able to support your DNA methylation if the eating and lifestyle strategies take too much time and energy to figure out.”
Throughout the book, the author shares the food and lifestyle choices that most affect DNA methylation and provides tips on how to choose foods that are most effective at reducing your bio age through DNA methylation.
Dr. Fitzgerald adds, “When it comes to DNA, it takes millennia for it change and adapt to changing conditions. DNA methylation, on the other hand, can create changes to your genetic expression quickly — so quickly as to be almost instantaneous.”
Younger You is worth a read for anyone looking to optimize their health or even turn back the clock.