Читать книгу Turn Back Time - lose weight and knock years off your age - Carole Malone - Страница 5

PREFACE

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK BY DR AAMER KHAN

Hello, my name is Dr Aamer Khan. I am a medical doctor. In 1986 I qualified from The Medical School of the University of Birmingham. I knew that I wanted to be a doctor since the age of eight years old, being inspired by the stories my father told me about my grandfather, who was a surgeon. I have always wanted to help people improve their health and daily lives and have dedicated myself to medicine since taking, and sticking to, the Hippocratic Oath on qualifying.

There are nine undertakings in the Hippocratic Oath:

‘I swear to fulfil, to the best of my ability and judgement, this covenant:

1 I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

2 I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

3 I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

4 I will not be ashamed to say ‘I know not,’ nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.

5 I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

6 I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

7 I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

8 I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

9 If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.’

It is with respect to the seventh and eighth obligations of this oath that I have undertaken research and have come to writing this guide for turning back time and recreating a healthy body, mind and psychological health that everybody can use and benefit from.

When my wife Lesley and I decided to enter a new era of our lives, and career in aesthetic and anti-ageing medicine in Harley Street, London, we began to realise that it wasn’t enough just to help people look better and younger on the outside. We realised that in order to look and feel good we had to encompass the whole person’s internal health and help to improve them both inside and out. We also realised that what we were actually practicing was not just cosmetic medicine and surgery, but internal and anti-ageing medicine. Looking good is not enough if you still have aches and pains associated with ageing and you can’t walk properly, or even get in and out of a taxi. Living life with pain always shows on your face.

About eight years ago we decided to study the subject of Ageing and Human Physiology. I was astonished by how much medical research had already been done, but was not common knowledge. I was just as astounded by the desire of people to look and feel good, and to stay younger for longer, and have healthier, more productive and useful lives. This desire is a bigger drive than the desire to simply look better on the outside. What I found was that by slowing down, and even reversing the ageing process, people don’t just feel better, they also look younger.

Clinical research has also shown that most of the age-related disease processes are related to the process of ageing itself and if we slow that down, or even reverse it, we can improve these conditions. It used to be thought that 80 per cent of our outcome was genetic and 20 per cent was due to the environment, so medicine has developed to focus on managing disease processes and their symptoms through prescribing medicines and operating on the end results of these medical conditions. In actuality, we have discovered genetics only determine 20 per cent of the outcome and 80 per cent is determined by our environment; this has led to more and more medical focus on preventing, delaying and curing medical conditions at a much earlier stage.

How we look on the outside reflects what is going on inside. When our systems start to fail we develop outward signs of ageing, which include obesity, muscular and joint stiffness and inflammation, aches and pains, ageing and coarseness of skin, dull eyes, thinning and greying of hair, changes in visual acuity and mental changes, with poor concentration, memory loss, feelings of anxiety, depression, dread and poor sleep.

In a desire to improve their health, people have tried various diets, exercise and nutritional programmes without much success, and at great cost to their pockets, which often even accelerate the very processes that they are trying to slow down. Clinical studies of such programmes have shown that none of them work. Most people who I have come across tend to say that these programmes are so extreme that they are not sustainable. They do not allow for a normal lifestyle, where we have to work, live as part of a family and socialise. For some people, the cost may be prohibitive, or they just don’t have the time. A lot of the programmes make people feel worse and they just give up on them. I have found that there is a great deal of confusion about how to achieve good health and which programme is best.

So I wanted to produce a book that would serve as a total body service manual, giving people the simple tools and the knowledge required to use them, so they could make a significant, sustainable difference to their health and wellbeing that could reverse their ageing, and possibly extend their lives by fifteen good-quality years, maybe even more.

I had two other light-bulb moments that further inspired and drove me to write this book:

 About fifteen years ago I decided to develop a nutritionally based health plan that looked at diet, nutrition and exercise based on cellular physiology and health. I tested it on hundreds of people and found that it helped them achieve better health, with a better weight control, less inflammation, and better physical and mental functioning. Those with medical conditions such as arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes and thyroid problems found that their control of these conditions was improved with the medication they were taking. People also reported an improvement in their night vision while driving.

 About ten years ago, when my wife and I decided to start our Harley Street Practice, we used to travel from Birmingham to London and back on the days we were working in Harley Street. I also had a NHS practice in Birmingham, and Lesley had a cosmeceutical company and rooms in Harley Street. We would get up at 5am and leave at 6.30. I would stop for fuel, and by the time I had filled the car, paid for it and got back in, Lesley would be fast asleep. I thought she was just tired because of the hours and energy we were putting into our business. Lesley then started to gain weight and complain of pains in her feet. As a medical doctor these should have been red flags to me for something not being quite right. Had a patient presented with these symptoms, I would have immediately got into diagnosing what was going wrong with them. Lesley and I were so close that I missed the early signs and it wasn’t until she reported hair loss that I thought of investigating her for an underactive thyroid, which she had.

After this I asked myself the question: if I, a qualified doctor with over twenty years’ experience, at that time, of diagnosing and treating these conditions could miss the early signs of such a condition in someone who is so close and important to me, then how many people are out there who are living with the early signs of a medical condition related to their lifestyles, and justifying and rationalising the signs and symptoms as those of inevitable ageing?

Sometimes we are so close to the Elephant, all we see is ‘Grey’.

I want to be able to help people pick up on and recognise the early signs of things going wrong, and change the course of their health and highlight it to their GPs at an early stage. I would like this book to help people understand the ageing process – what accelerates it, how that is related to disease processes and what can be done to reverse and slow it down – so they can improve their physical, psychological and mental health and wellbeing.

I dedicate this book to my loving wife, who is a constant support and inspiration to me in all that I do, and to our six wonderful children, Luke, Adam, Farooq, Nadia, Sophie, and Sophia who have brought so much joy into our lives.