From detox and cryotherapy to Ozempika and NAD+. How to prolong your youth and not become a victim of trends

No one just wants to live a long life. It is important for everyone to preserve the quality of the body and mind. In pursuit of a balance of longevity and health, people choose luxury spas, expensive skin care, diets, and, of course, turn to both medicine and non-standard practitioners.

Can wellness treatments give us a second youth and prolong our lives? And how do you know which of the hundreds of options really works? Kamilya Tabeeva, PhD, endocrinologist, expert in preventive and anti-age medicine at the European Medical Center (EMC), tells the story.

Health on your own

Modern celebrities do everything to keep young and active for as long as possible.

Some people embark on biohacking and calculate the dosage of vitamins and dietary supplements by grams. Others, like Doctor Strange from the Marvel universe, turn to ancient practices, harsh austerities, or specifically test themselves in extreme conditions. For example, Pavel Durov and actor Chris Hemsworth take ice baths, and Gwyneth Paltrow promotes hard detox. Against their background, Jeff Bezos and Arianna Huffington, who are sure that only high-quality sleep for at least 8 hours per night will save us, look conservative.

Some stars go further and experiment with microdosing psychedelics. Among the proponents of this method are speaker and entrepreneur Timothy Ferris and the late Steve Jobs. Many people are sure that this approach will help maintain mental clarity and creativity for a long time, but it is unclear how it will affect physical health.

Despite the popularity of such methods, most of them are totally unscientific and even harmful. For example, the effectiveness of cryotherapy is still controversial, and detox diets, the removal of toxins or parasites often turn out to be just a marketing ploy. Even biohacking, which relies on data, is still difficult to call a proven method of longevity.

It's not fashion trends that help keep you healthy and young, but evidence-based medicine, proper nutrition, physical activity, regular check-ups, and giving up bad habits.

On the verge of proven

More recently, popular videos about morning routine from celebrities or bloggers were full of various dietary supplements: for example, Bella Hadid in a short video showed how she drinks at least three drinks in the morning with the addition of sea moss and detoxificationDietary supplements, followed by taking 14 more vitamins and completing the routine with the use of aromatic oils.

Victoria Beckham shared in an interview that gives preference to vitamins with bee pollen with more more than 20 amino acids. Jennifer Aniston said that she is a fan of liquid fish oil and resveratrol, which helps fight excess weight.

Recently, the fashion for beauty pills has been replaced by a new story of vitamin droppers. She came to Russia from Hollywood, Madonna, Brad Pitt and Justin Bieber.

< p> From 2023, entire clinics specializing in infusion therapy began to open in Russia. They began offering youth droppers with NAD+ (an organic compound found in all living cells), vitamin cocktails and other benefits in salons and even at home.

For example, you can not engage in preventive self-medication for endogenous and exogenous toxins, i.e. those that have formed inside the body or got there from the outside. This is also because a healthy person has a detoxification system: get rid of harmful substances. He is helped by the immune and lymphatic systems, liver, lungs, skin and digestive tract.

If the body does not cope on its own, the doctor may prescribe therapeutic plasmapheresis.

However, for those who plan to embark on the path of health and longevity, it is important to understand that the effect of any procedures will be limited if you do not change your lifestyle.

For example, chronic lack of sleep has been proven to lead to weight gain, impaired carbohydrate metabolism, and the risk of diabetes. If a person sleeps for 2-3 hours a day, wellness treatments will not save him from metabolic problems.

Together with a doctor, you can build a system for a healthy lifestyle, form a healthy diet, choose physical activity, normalize sleep patterns. This is also wellness and it can be implemented in the EMC.

To inject or not: attitude to weight loss drugs

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, such as Ozempik (semaglutide), are currently very popular. By themselves, these are good drugs. They have a positive side: they help reduce visceral fat, reduce inflammatory markers, and have a positive effect on blood lipids.

Like any drug, Ozempika has side effects. These include nausea, vomiting, abdominal discomfort, bloating, and diarrhea. The risks of gallstone disease and inflammation of the pancreas also increase.

However, when the patient is in the course of treatment for obesity (and this is a chronic disease) I have already lost weight, injecting microdoses of Ozempika is safer and more useful than completely leaving myself without medical support. Otherwise, the weight may return.

Excess fat is much more dangerous than the potential side effects of the drug. Here, the doctor evaluates the risk and benefit, and if the benefits outweigh the possible negative consequences, the appointment is considered justified.

Body mass index (BMI) is not always the main indicator for treatment. It is much more important to take into account the waist size, bioimpedance analysis and the amount of visceral fat. There are situations in which BMI is normal, but a person has visceral fat. In this case, it is worth considering drug treatment, but again, if there are indications.

But if we are dealing with a conditionally healthy person, whose all indicators are normal, and the health risks are not high, then the question arises: is it worth using medications? After all, if used improperly and with an unbalanced diet, it can lead to gallstone disease and other side effects.

There is another situation where a person is rapidly gaining weight, for example, gaining 15 kg in a year, but still at a normal BMI. In such cases, it is important to understand the reasons for weight gain: why is it not possible to reduce it on your own, what processes occur in the body? Here, as always, it is important to assess the balance of risk and benefit.

Evidence-based wellness: Everything you wanted to know

It is necessary to lay the foundation for a healthy life as early as possible. The EMC doctors are convinced of this. And they know exactly what will make you feel better.