Seminars teach how
to retain youthful glow
via healthy eating
For years the medical and nutritional establishments have urged people to eat their fruits and vegetables to ward off cancers and heart disease.
It's a message that makes sense, yet is too abstract for many in their prime. With the lines and rolls of aging believed to be years away or inevitable, based on one's genetic hard-wiring, they see no reason to alter their diet of sodas and french fries. It's always live for today, find the cure tomorrow.
What doctors and fruit growers should have been saying is this: Junk food makes you ugly. Nothing works like an appeal to human vanity, and no one understands that better than those in the beauty industry.
'Aging is Optional'
Discussion of cosmeceuticals, vitamins, topical treatments and nutritionWhere: Sephora, Ala Moana
When: 9 to 11 a.m. or 4 to 6 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to noon Saturday and Sunday. Japanese class 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday. Advanced class 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Admission: $35, redeemable in Dr. Perricone product purchases
Call: 944-9797
Jeanne Chomko of N.V. Perricone, M.D., hosts a series of "Aging is Optional" seminars this weekend. She'll be talking about the role of diet and nutritional supplements to slow the aging process, the benefits being better health and -- for those who believe as Billy Crystal once said, that "it's better to look good than feel good" -- a radiant complexion well into one's senior years.
We've already seen so many cadaverous faces stretched taut by plastic surgeons it's beginning to sink in that resorting to one surgical procedure after another is hardly the way to age gracefully. Perricone embraces Hippocrates' philosophy of maintaining optimal health through good nutrition -- "Let food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food."
"We want people to know that power really starts with themselves," Chomko said. "The minute they decide to eat a particular food, they have to realize its long-term effects."
Halloween's effects were evident in people Chomko encountered everywhere while in Las Vegas over the weekend. "Everyone was all puffed up. I said, 'Aha! You ate candy!' and they'd whine, 'I know! Look at me!' It's amazing to watch the results of too much sugar intake.
"The body wants to be in balance, but we're our own worst enemy. The last time I was (in Hawaii), I noticed a lot of people had difficulty walking around, a lot of people were overweight, and a lot of it is the result of choosing the wrong foods, and there's no reason for that. You live on an island of plenty, with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables."
In his book, "The Wrinkle Cure: Unlock the Power of Cosmeceuticals for Supple, Youthful Skin" (Warner Books, $13.95 in paperback), Dr. Nicholas Perricone -- who served as an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at the Yale University School of Medicine and adjunct professor of medicine at Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine -- offers a chapter on "Beauty From the Inside Out," a diet plan for optimal body function, with a side effect of jump-starting cells to repair skin damage. The immediate effect may be observed in reduced puffiness in the cheeks and around the eyes.
How immediate? Chomko says following Perricone's diet plan, what she calls a "nutritional facelift," for three days will result in reduced inflammation and swelling, and a reduction in glycosylation, or the "browning" caused by the cross-linking of collagen. This is what causes skin to toughen and become discolored and wrinkled. Think of your complexion as a seared steak and you'll get the idea.
THE PRIMARY CULPRIT is sugar consumption, which is not new to legions who have already ditched sugar and bad carbohydrates through the Zone and Atkins diets, or read biochemist Stephen Cherniske's book, "The Metabolic Plan" (Ballantine Publishing Group, $14.95, softcover). Cherniske also believes in the step-by-step process of natural rejuvenation that he says is possible through diet and intake of vitamin and nutritional supplements to "trick" your body into adopting the metabolism of a 20-year-old.
In his book, Cherniske describes anabolic and catabolic forces in the human body. The former refers to repair functions, the latter to breakdown and degeneration. The greater your body's anabolic drive, the slower your body ages. Cherniske points out studies of twins that have demonstrated 35 percent of aging is genetic, but 65 percent is in our own hands, explaining how some motivated 40-year-olds can pass for 30, while others seem to be pushing 55.
At Chomko's last appearance in May, one of the audience members was a 60-year-old woman who had the skin of a 30-year-old. Other workshop attendees wanted to know how she kept her skin so smooth and even-toned. The answer was common sense. She said she stayed out of the sun, and "I grew up in Germany where we didn't have all the sodas or processed foods that Americans have. We just ate fresh foods."
Chomko says processed foods rob produce of nutrients -- cocktails of flavonoids, polyphenols, isoflavones and carotenoids -- that make them so beneficial. Chomko recommends simply steaming vegetables crisp-tender to retain as many nutrients as possible.
Key to a healthy diet are foods rich in antioxidants such as cabbage, broccoli, cantaloupe, berries, tomatoes and dark green leafy vegetables. Antioxidants repair harm from free radicals that rob cells of electrons. It's the same oxidation process that causes metals to rust. In youth, such damage is imperceptible and easily repaired, but over time, free radicals multiply beyond the body's ability to repair itself, leading to disease.
In "The Wrinkle Cure," Perricone compares the free radical to an "out-of-control guy" in a singles bar who gets into unhealthy relationships and does "unsuspecting partners -- other molecules and atoms -- a good deal of harm."
It is important to note that Perricone says it is not necessary to adopt a strict diet plan, but to replace unhealthy foods with healthy choices as often as possible, and to remember this mantra before each meal: "I need a protein, a good source of carbohydrates and a small amount of unsaturated fat."
A typical meal would consist of a piece of chicken or fish, fresh vegetables and fruit and a small source of monounsaturated fats such as olive oil or a few nuts, such as almonds.
Perricone also advocates grazing, that is, eating four to five small, balanced meals a day to keep insulin levels balanced, another benefit being better concentration. Rapid intake of sugar, as in soft drinks or pastries, raises insulin to levels beyond the body's processing capabilities, which can lead to a slew of degenerative diseases, including diabetes, Alzheimer's, cancer and heart disease.
FOLLOWING Perricone's diet, Chomko says, "feeds the brain, nourishes the skin and reduces inflammation."
In addition, she said following the diet for three days will reduce the physiological craving for sugar, especially among women whose low serotonin levels lead them to crave sugary snacks, chocolates (which can be OK in moderation if high in cocoa rather than sugar content) and lattes as pick-me-ups.
Chomko will also be introducing two new N.V. Perricone, M.D. products that won't be in stores until December: a Firming Facial Mask and Neuropeptides, the latter a combination of 41 neuropeptides or amino acids that send chemical messages from the brain to cells, telling them to go to work.
This cosmeceutical facelift doesn't come cheap, at $570 for 2 ounces. Preorders will be taken at the Sephora events. Other Perricone products, geared toward women over 35, run about $35 to $85.
"We're lucky to have these products that allow people to see results immediately," Chomko said. "We'd like people to learn to eat right, but unfortunately our generation has a 'give it to me now' attitude. We don't have the patience our parents may have had. We want to plant a seed but want it to grow now; we want a flower tomorrow."
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