Tremendous strides have been made in the field of anti-aging medicine, The Wrinkle Cure, in 2000. It was there that I first introduced my inflammation–aging theory, which firmly places chronic, low-grade invisible inflammation at the center of aging, age-related diseases, and a host of degenerative conditions. This theory was often dismissed with either ridicule or skepticism— however, science has now recognized its validity, and inflammation has been overwhelmingly recognized as a serious threat to health and longevity.

As you will learn in this book, we do not need elaborate, expensive, and possibly dangerous pharmaceuticals to halt the inflammatory response and its resultant negative effects. Dr. Perricone’s 7 Secrets to Beauty, Health, and Longevity will give you all of the tools you need, starting with the single most important—the food we eat.

Every day multiple studies are published linking diet to disease. A recent study reported that diets high in saturated fats increase our risk for Alzheimer’s disease, which is an inflammatory disease. Conversely, the anti-inflammatory diet reduces our risk for this debilitating and growing epidemic. Just as important as choosing the right foods is choosing how they are grown and raised. A new study has clearly linked exposure to pesticides with Parkinson’s disease. As I have always emphasized, buy organic and protect yourself and your loved ones from exposure to proven toxic substances.

But it goes even further than the anti-inflammatory foods. We have also made great technological strides in the development of novel nutritional supplements to complement foods and provide the missing links in health and wellness. For the first time, as outlined in this book, we have proven methodologies to revitalize our tired, worn-out bodies at the cellular level and recharge them with increased energy, improved mood, a greater sense of well-being, and renewed purpose.

These targeted supplements are worlds beyond the original vitamins of past generations. Today we can target the key parts of the cells, such as the mitochondria, to restore energy to the cell. As we age, energy levels decline in the cells—in fact, they eventually lose their ability to repair themselves altogether. With the use of a newly discovered class of mitochondrial rejuvenators, we can recharge the cells in all of our organ systems, including the skin, for total body rejuvenation. Being a dermatologist, I find this particularly exciting. Learning how to restore bone structure and muscle mass to the aging face is one of our greatest strategies in maintaining a youthful face.

However, the good news doesn’t stop there. Science has recently learned that brain cells can also be rejuvenated. It was long and widely believed that we were born with a genetically determined brain of fixed size and potential, for better or worse. This is far from the truth. We now know that the brain is a growing and changing organ. As we will learn in this book, we have many strategies to optimize this growth, including the essential fatty acid phosphatidylserine, which is a powerful prevention for memory loss, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. Other fatty acids, such as the omega-3s and fish oils, dramatically improve brain health, mood, attention span, and more.

We will also learn about forms of exercise that will not only deliver powerful anti-aging benefits to the body but will also increase our powers of focus and concentration while restoring physical and mental equilibrium. As you will learn in Dr. Perricone’s 7 Secrets to Beauty, Health, and Longevity, our bodies, minds, and spirits have the potential for tremendous growth, rebirth, and regeneration, given the proper tools. Thank you for accompanying me on this exciting journey.

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More than 41 million women in America suffer from heart disease. The number of people with heart disease in women over time, more and continues to grow. Even people with this deadly disease experienced by more women than men.

However, based on tests conducted in the Swedish study, heart disease problems can be overcomed by performing five healthy lifestyle, for an example, non-alcohol, healthy diet, exercise every day, normal weight and not smoking can prove to expel the risk of heart attack.

This method is believed could overcome the problem of heart disease as much as 92 percent. This research has been tested on 24,000 women.

Here’s how health designed to help you reduce the risk of heart disease. Try to start doing a series of healthy patterns for a week, and feel the benefits for the long term:

Day 1: Drinking Green Tea

This potent beverage contains several powerful antioxidants that can reduce cholesterol and even lower blood pressure. To make this healthy drink, prepare 20 ounces of boiling water, put three bags of green tea without caffeine, and let stand for 10 minutes. If visible change color, you can serve it in a teapot. Could also add ice cubes. Enjoy the aroma and taste intensity throughout the day.

Day 2: Consumption of Low-Fat Healthy Foods

To keep your heart health, fat consumption which is recommended not exceeding 30% of calories. And more importantly, avoid using saturated oil and replace it with unsaturated fats that can be obtained from olive oil, nuts, dark chocolate, avocado and polyunsaturated which can be obtained from salmon, flaxseed, and walnuts.

Limit your intake of saturated fat to 7% of total calories (1600 calories to the diet, it was about 12 grams per day). Avoid Trans fats are commonly found in cakes, biscuits, baked goods and other processed foods. Both these fats can increase LDL cholesterol that can clog the arteries, cholesterol.

Day 3: Healthy Cooking

Use a MUFA-rich olive oil in your food preparation whenever possible. Heart healthy fats can lower “bad” LDL cholesterol and raise “good” (HDL). Olive oil rich in antioxidants, which can help reduce the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases, like Alzheimer’s or dementia.

Provide always substitute olive oil for butter or margarine on the table, and use it to replace vegetable oils in cooking.

Day 4: Provide adequate rest periods

According to a study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, each additional adult bedtime can reduce the risk of coronary artery calcification, the cause of heart disease, by 33%. When you have less time to sleep, your body releases stress hormones that constrict blood vessels and cause inflammation.

If you regularly feel tired when getting out of bed and always feel sleepy in the daytime, you need to be alert, so you can not sleep. Most adults need 7-8 hours a night to sleep.

Day 5: Consumption of many fiber

Studies show that the more fiber you eat, the less likely you are to have a heart attack. Reduce consumption of wheat bread and cereals that contain wheat, wheat bran. Expand consuming beans, soups, and salads. Within a day, you must consume 25-35 grams of fiber per day.

Day 6: Fish Feast

Meat saturated fats can clog your arteries. On the other hand, fish such as salmon and other fish species believed to be rich in omega-3 fatty acids that will help keep your heart still beat. Eat fish-fisheries that contain omega-3 may reduce the risk of death from heart attack by 52%!

Women have a lower risk of stroke than men. Fats and trans fats will be dangerous for women after menopause due to increased risk of stroke.

Cakes and fried foods will cause a lot of fats and trans fats. Those foods contains a lot of fat and can increase the risk of stroke for women over the age of 50.

Dr. Emil Matarese, head of the stroke program at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, conducted an examination of 87,230 participants and the results were presented at the American Stroke Association conference.

Before menopause, women traditionally have a lower risk of stroke than men with the same age. But according to Dr. Ka He, nutrition specialist and senior author of the study from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and colleagues Yaemsiri Sirin, after menopause gender issues are no longer influential.

Research conducted on participants with 50-79 years of age. Researchers put them into four groups based on the amount of fat eaten. Then the researchers looked 7 years later to find out how much stroke caused by blockage of blood vessels to the brain.

“There were 288 stroke patients in the group of women who consumed the most fat per day (95 grams) and 249 in the group ate less fat (25 grams),” said Yaemsiri as reported by CBC, Monday (1/3/2010).

But there are other factors which affect the risk of stroke, such as weight, race, smoking, exercise, alcohol, and drugs such as aspirin or hormone pills. Researchers concluded that women who ate the most fat,  has 44 percent higher risk of stroke.

Researchers also found 30 percent greater risk in women who consume more trans fat contained in margarine, fried foods, crackers and cakes.

“We need to look at the labels on the food we buy, because there are a lot of hidden fat in the cake and people do not realize how much they eat,” Matarese said.

American Heart Association recommends to limit the maximum 25-35 percent of total calories, fat and less than 1 percent for trans fats. The most healthy fats found in nuts, seeds, fish and vegetable oils.

Most of the supplements available in the market do not fall under the category of toxin free fish oil. They contain harmful chemicals like arsenic, mercury, lead, PCBs, etc. Therefore, you have to be very careful while choosing the best supplement. Toxin free fish oil can do wonders and an impure one can be hazardous to the health.

Before going into the details of selection of impurity free fish oil, let us first understand the reason of the toxicity present in them.

As we know, these supplements are nothing but soft gels containing oil extracted from healthy and oily fish like hoki, tuna, mackerel, salmon, etc. If the fish have impurities, obviously the oil derived from them is also tainted.

Because of the humankind, with shipping lines, agriculture, and industrial waste dumping in to the ocean waters, fish also accumulate harmful chemicals and toxins along with omega3 fats. You will be shocked to know that toxicity in fish is so high that there are many government warnings against eating too much fish.

Therefore, emerges the need of pure and well-refined supplements.

Molecular distillation is the only refining process known to humankind that can filter out all the unwanted and harmful chemicals from the oil. Through this process, all the impurities are filtered out based on their molecular weight. This process ensures that the product is of pharmaceutical grade and is good for human consumption.

This process is very expensive and to increase their profit margins, many manufactures opt to skip this most needed refining process. As a result, market today has many sub-standard supplements too. These supplements have very high percentages of toxins and their consumption can result in mercury poisoning, upset stomach, diarrhea, nausea, headache, etc.

On the other words, toxin free fish oil helps you reap the maximum benefits of omega3 fatty acids. Pure supplement keeps heart healthy, blood pressure under control, and reduces cholesterol levels. It prevents mood swings and anxiety and depression bouts. It helps in proper growth and development of various body organs like brain, eyes, nervous system, etc.

You can check the toxicity in a supplement by looking at the COA (Certificate of Analysis) published by the manufactures. It clearly specifies the amount of impurities oil has.

There has been a dramatic decline in the number of deaths from heart attacks in the last decade. In 1970, nearly a million Americans died of cardiovascular disease; now the annual toll is below 600,000. The cause for this improved mortality rate are unknown, but most experts believe that the increased awareness of cardiovascular risk factors and their correction have played an important role in cutting the death toll.

What are the risks? Eventually, about half of all Americans develop some form of heart disease. The most common is a hardening of the arteries caused by a buildup of fatty deposits along the vessel lining. This is a slow process that usually takes many years to develop into serious disease. If the coronary arteries, which supply blood to the heart muscle, become severely blocked by the fatty deposits, warning symptoms of heart disease may appear. These include shortness of breath, chest pains (angina pectoris) that are relieved by rest, or a combination of the two. In many people, however, there are no warning signs — the first symptom of heart disease may be a heart attack. This is why it is important to identify and correct possible risk factors before they reach this stage.

In recent years, a number of these risk factors have been identified. Some of them, such as age, sex and family history of heart disease, are things over which we have no control. But there also are a number of factors that can be modified or eliminated, and such action appears to reduce the portability of a heart attack. The three most important controllable risk factors are high blood pressure, high levels of blood cholesterol and cigarette smoking. In fact, many experts attribute the recent decline in cardiovascular deaths to the fact that more people than ever before are now being treated for high blood pressure. Changes in the American diet that have reduced the consumption of butter, eggs and animal fats – and consequently lowered the average blood cholesterol — and a reduction in smoking by middle-aged men also are credited with lowering the toll. Since the likelihood of developing heart disease increases when two or more risk factors are present, modifying the controllable ones helps reduce the hazard of those over which we have no control.

Role of Diet

Studies have shown that population groups whose diets are rich in cholesterol and other animal and dairy fats have more heart attacks that those whose diets are low in these saturated fats. Americans, whose diets are high in meat and eggs, have a higher incidence of heart disease than the Japanese, who end to eat very little meat and other animal and dairy fats.

Studies have also shown that high blood cholesterol — more than 200 miligrams per mililiter of blood — can be lowered by modifying the diet. This means eating more fish and poultry while cutting consumption of red meat, eggs, butter and other dairy fats, and increasing consumption of fruits, vegetables and cereal grains. Substituting polyunsaturated cooking oils (corn, safflower or sunflower oil, for example) for lard or hardened shortening, and using margarines whose labels indicate a high ratio of polyunsaturated to saturated fats (for example, 4 to 2) instead of butter or margarines with less favorable ratios (e.g., equal or 2 to 3) also help to lower blood cholesterol.

Role of High Blood Pressure

People with high blood pressure have a marked increase in heart attacks and strokes. The cause of most high blood pressure is unkown, but it usually can be lowered by the use of antihypertensive drugs, reduced salt intake, and weight loss in people who are overweight. Controlling high blood pressure is an important preventive measure because it increases the work load of the heart and also directly contributes to hardening of the arteries (arteriosclerosis).

Role of Cigarette Smoking

Since 1964, when the Surgeon General reported that cigarette smokers on the average had a 70 percent greater chance of having a heart attack than nonsmokers, many other studies have confirmed that cigarette smoking is a major risk factor. This risk increases with the number of cigarettes smoked, and recent studies hae found that low-tar, low-nicotine cigarettes do not lower the risk of heart disease. Stopping smoking is now considered one of the best things you can do to help prevent a heart attack.

Other Risk Factors

Sedentary life style. Although evidence linking a sedentary life style to increased likelihood of heart disease is indirect, physically active people are known to have wider coronary arteries, which presumably would not be as prone to blockage as those sedentary people.

Type A personality. In recent years, much discussion has focused on the relationship between the type A personality, characterized by anxiety, impatience and perfectionism, and the risk of a heart attack. Although many assessments have confirmed this relationship, scientific proof definitely linking personality type and the development of heart disease is yet to come.

Diabetes. People with diabetes, a serious disease in which the body cannot regulate its blood sugar (glucose), have a higher incidence of coronary disease and heart attacks. The incidence is increased further if the diabetic has other risk factors.

Obesity. the Framingham Study recently concluded that obesity alone increases the risk of heart disease — a hypothesis that has been debated for years. Since obesity often coexists with hypertension, diabetes and a sedentary life style, weight control is an important factor in reducing a number of coronary risk factors.

Sex and age. Some risk factors, such as age and aging and a person´s sex, are unavoidable. Statistics show that men under the age of 45 years are 10 times as likely to develop coronary artery disease as women in the same age group. Between the ages of 45 and 60 years, however, the sex difference diminishes. After age 60 years, the incidence of coronary artery disease is about equally distributed between men and women.

Family history. An inherited susceptibility is also an important risk factor that cannot be avoided. Some manifestations, such as high blood pressure or an inherited tendency to have very high blood blood cholesterol levels (familial hyper-cholesterolemia) can be controlled by drugs and diet.