What is the Zone?

What exactly is the Zone?  Simply stated, being in the Zone is how you slow down aging by reducing inflammation and increasing the repair of inflammatory damage.  The Zone is a highly dynamic physiological state controlled by your diet.  Like any validated medical science, the Zone is determined by your blood chemistry.  Your blood will tell if you are in the Zone or you are not.  In the Zone, you can better reduce, resolve, and repair the inflammatory damage caused by any type of injury.  The result is decreasing the onset of age-related chronic diseases resulting in the extension of your healthspan. 

What is Healthspan?
Healthspan is defined as years of life minus years of chronic disability.  The future goal of medicine will not be treating the symptoms of a particular chronic disease but understanding what causes our healthspan to decrease in the first place.  For example, many chronic diseases are associated with chronic low-level inflammation.  However, what causes this chronic inflammation has not been apparent until recently; it’s the inhibition of the “master switch” of your metabolism, AMPK. 

What is Metabolism?
Metabolism is how we convert food into energy to keep us alive.  It is AMPK found in every living cell in the body that controls the flow of that energy.  If AMPK activity is optimized, you live longer.  If AMPK activity is inhibited, you gain weight, develop various chronic diseases at an earlier age, and accelerate your rate of aging.  When you are in the Zone, your levels of AMPK are optimal to achieve a longer and better life. 

It Can’t Be That Simple?
AMPK also controls your immune system.  It’s called immuno-metabolism.  The underlying cause of aging and the chronic diseases associated with aging is a growing population of senescent cells that are not eliminated by your immune system.  Senescent cells are transformed cells like cancer cells.  Instead of growing uncontrollably, senescent cells now generate new sources of inflammation in the body that speed up aging by increasing the levels of inflammation in every organ in your body.

Furthermore, senescent cells can turn other cells into senescent cells.  In this regard, senescent cells are often called “zombie cells .” Under normal conditions, your immune system quickly eliminates these senescent cells.  But if AMPK activity is not optimal, the ability of the immune system to remove these zombie cells is compromised, and their population begins to grow.  This increase in senescent cells accelerates aging and the appearance of the chronic diseases associated with aging, as shown below.