Visit a primary care practitioner for an annual physical exam and you will have an assessment of basic health information like height, weight, and vital signs, including heart rate, blood pressure, and cholesterol, along with perhaps a resting electrocardiogram and basic labs. However, it is well known that this data is insufficient to identify patients at risk for early disease or death nor will it predict functional decline with aging. Read more
What if I offered you a pill that took your cellular age back ten to fifteen years? This pill also increases mitochondrial numbers (kind of like the number of battery chargers in our cells), increases overall available energy, improves metabolic flexibility, lowers resting heart rate, decreases blood pressure, and improves insulin resistance? This “pill” is yours for the taking, except we call it “zone 2 training”.
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When the coronavirus SARS-co-v2, a devastating communicable disease, descended upon the global population in December 2019, it became clear early on that there was a wide spectrum of illness, ranging from almost nothing to diarrhea, severe pneumonia, stroke, and death. By May of 2020, it became even more clear that there are particular conditions (“comorbidities”) that markedly increase the disease severity and death rate, and that these conditions had in common an immune system dysfunction with the shared characteristic of chronic inflammation. We have learned that people with chronic inflammation have higher levels of furin and that furin acts as a facilitator to allow better binding of the viral spike protein to our ACE2 receptors. Harboring chronic inflammation turns us into something like Velcro, attracting more virus, secreting more furin, and allowing more severe disease states to evolve. Read more
My grandfather used to say “Exercise? I get plenty of exercise – pushing myself back from the dinner table every night!” Of course, he walked almost daily on the Coney Island boardwalk in the middle of the winter and lived well into his 90s, so this was really just a way to get a laugh from us. Read more
It’s not enough to walk the dog. That is to say, there are several components to a well-executed exercise plan or prescription. For most of us, walking at 2-3 mph would best be categorized as an “activity of daily living” rather than exercise.
One reason to exercise is to improve or maintain cardiorespiratory fitness. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, or 75 minutes of “vigorous” activity. However, the American Heart Association is now recommending 300 minutes per week, and a JAMA review article in 2015 highlighted that for longevity benefits, while 150 minutes reduced all-cause risk of death by 31%, 450-700 minutes per week resulted in a 39% decreased risk of death. If you are doing the math, that is approximately 1 hour per day. There is no question that moderate to intense cardio-aerobic exercise is a powerful longevity tool, and in fact, fitness is a better predictor of lifespan than cardiovascular risk factors and labs. The heart rate must rise to 60-70% of your heart rate maximum (something we call zone 2 training) in order to count. Read more
707A EXECUTIVE BLVD, VALLEY COTTAGE, NY 10989
845-268-1655 • 
INFO@HVFM.ORG
707A EXECUTIVE BLVD
VALLEY COTTAGE, NY 10989
845-268-1655
INFO@HVFM.ORG
