What Men Want

Nowadays, men are taking better care of themselves! That’s why there are an increasing number of men’s personal care products. But are they the only things that will make men look better and younger?

We had an interview with Doctor Phaisit Trakulkongsmut, specialist of Anti-aging and Regenerative Medicine at Samitivej Sukhumvit, about how to look younger.

Doctor Phaisit believes that the holistic approach of the health system goes as deep as your cell level. Here are the factors that you should be aware of in order to look young and remain so:

• Oxidative Stress-the damage made to a cell through the oxidative process. Everybody has been talking about free radicals or reactive oxygen species. So, let’s understand about it or how it functions. When our metabolic system works, it’s like a factory that lets out energy as well as waste. Free radicals are the waste from that factory with uneven electron. This waste goes around to the perfect cells or our DNA and steals its electron, thus, weakening that cell or our DNA. Now you may visualize the picture. The main factors that cause free radicals are food with high calories, grilled and fried food, cigarette smoking, stress, sunlight, etc. These free radicals cause Cancer, Heart diseases, Alzheimer, Parkinson disease, Glaucoma, etc. Fortunately, we all have natural anti-oxidant but it lessens as we age. Thus, our body becomes the ‘piggy bank’ of these free radicals!
• Advanced Glycation End Product or AGEs are the end-products of glycation reactions, in which a sugar molecule bonds to either a protein or lipid molecule without an enzyme to control the reaction. In other words, when you eat too much carbs, it will turn into sugar which will react with the protein in your body, preventing it to work properly. If it reacts with the protein on the skin surface, your skin will be less resilient. If it reacts with the protein in your blood vessels, it may harden your arteries (Atherosclerosis).
• Chronic Inflammation-your fat cells create consistent inflammation called pro-inflammatory cytokines in your body. This chronic inflammation will inflame your blood vessels and facilitate the fat to cling on to the wall of your blood vessels and harden it (Ath-erosclerosis). This is the main cause of heart diseases. So the more weight you put on, the more risks you face.

Those are the 3 main causes that prevent you from looking better and feeling younger as well. So now you know what to do, right? If not, here is Dr. Phaisit’s summarized recommendation on the “5Hs For Healthy Life”?

1. Healthy diet-caloric restriction, high fiber and less carb to prevent Oxidative Stress and AGEs
2. Healthy exercise-do you need more explanation?
3. Healthy weight-check your BMI and fat mass by the In-body machine to prevent chronic inflammation
4. Healthy lifestyle-stay away from any behavior that increase free radicals in your body
5. Health check-up-prevents the ailment or disease before it attacks you.

There are many people who feel that they may not have enough nutrients and need some vitamin supplements. Dr. Phaisit said that in terms of Anti-aging and Regenerative Medicine, he will only prescribe vitamin supplements for the following reasons:

• Supplementing those vitamins that we may not have enough.
• Adding high dose of certain vitamins to treat the diseases.
• Providing vitamins as anti-oxidants.

“Everyone can look younger and healthier if they don’t indulge themselves too much. The Anti-aging and Regenerative Medicine is the art of lifestyle modification that helps you to take better care of your weight and diet. Like they said ‘prevention is better than cure’,” Dr. Phaisit concluded.