Most of us are so caught up in intensity of economic survival, raising kids, dealing with relationships, and other demands, that often our health takes a back seat. Good health begins with a healthy lifestyle. As obvious as that seems, it requires daily reinforcement, planning and an overall strategy. Instead, faced with prospect of having deal with yet another project, it's sometimes easier to assign blame: government's environmental and agricultural policies, IRS, food industry, on and on ad nauseum.

"It’s about control, not blame," says Dr. Fuller-Looney. "If you know what your choices are but you continue to make poor choices, then it is something that you have created and you are not in control. We have to stop doing what doesn’t work for us. We do that by finding out reasons why it doesn’t work for us."

So when it comes to health, lifestyle is everything. Understanding how our bodies work, and what we can do to support that work is part of taking responsibility for health. Beyond needing clean air to breathe and pure water to drink, right foods and enzymes to digest them are next most important thing.

People in United States, as well as most of Western world increasingly are unable to properly digest food they eat. The $40 billion annual antacid and digestive relief industry in U.S. readily attests to that. In most cases, these items treat symptoms, not cause. Worse, suppression of symptoms usually further exacerbates cause.

When food we eat is not properly digested, over time, one thing is virtually guaranteed to happen--we get sick. There is growing evidence that primary cause of most health problems is bad digestion. Good digestion is a direct measure of optimal health. Undigested food creates toxic waste in our body. The toxicity sets into motion onset of disease--arthritis, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, chronic heart burn, and cancer, to name just a few. These maladies are typically misconstrued as inevitable frailty of aging or unexplained action of heredity and genetics.

Many of these conditions can be prevented and/or reversed with lifestyle modification combined with digestive enzyme therapy. With proper application of supplementary digestive enzymes, an insulted metabolism can be restored and internal biological systems returned to a healthy normal.

PROTEIN DIGESTION Dr. Fuller-Looney names inadequate protein digestion as primary villain to good health. "We need to digest our food, especially protein," she says. "As we age, we have a problem digesting protein. So many in nursing homes are wasting away, just skin on bones. This happens even if they are staying active. The one thing that all elderly people have in common is that they cannot break down protein. They cannot build muscle. And that is because everything is tied to loss of enzymes."

Protease, enzyme that converts raw proteins into useable amino acids, is initially manufactured in pancreas. But beyond digesting new protein intake, protease production of your body is also used for rebuilding tissues. If there is a lot of tissue damage of digestive tract because of nutritional abuse, this adds a big demand, often exceeding requirements needed to digest food intake. Additionally, body's immune system uses protease to break down and eliminate dead bacteria, viruses and parasites. Pile on stress and other coping mechanisms to make up for organ dysfunction, and clearly demand for protease exceeds body's ability to produce it.

We can’t stop ageing – but we can make best of what we already have. Looking after your skin and general appearance is one step. But what about your teeth? They are a revealing sign of ageing – yet surprising things can be done today to reverse this process, says Dr. George Druttman, of Cap600 London City Dental www.cap600.com

Staying young-looking Teeth are one of first features that people look at. Our teeth deteriorate over years, gradually taking on more and more imperfections that betray our age – or make us look even older than we really are. In Western society, where one in six people will soon be over 65, everybody wants to stay as young-looking as possible.

So how can a 50-year old stay young-looking? Well, maybe she has fortunate genes, looks after her skin regularly (often in addition to great genes) and has had excellent cosmetic facial surgery. To look at her, you wouldn’t be able to guess her true age – until she starts smiling. Then her mouth gives game away. How? Because of state of her teeth.

Signs of ageing – your teeth So how do your teeth betray your age? Their colour changes over time, losing brightness and luminosity, and becoming darker. Dental wear will shorten teeth, making them look ‘stubby’. Years of food, nicotine and fluid stains can also stain teeth permanently.

Tooth shape: The natural smile line is a gentle convex. But extensive wear on our front teeth can change this to a straight or even concave line (reversed curve). Tooth grinding (prompted by stress), accelerates this dental erosion. Chipped tooth edges are another sign, creating an unbalanced and disharmonious look.

Tooth surface: The fine ridges on young teeth get smoothed away as we get older. While in early adulthood such smoothing can produce attractive teeth that reflect light more uniformly, too much smoothing will show age.

Tooth crack lines: Over time, micro-fractures can appear on enamel surface. While perhaps superficial, they can show up as little crack lines, which will downgrade attractiveness of teeth.

Filled front teeth: White fillings in front teeth need to be regularly replaced or they change colour and start to look obvious. They may even show dark lines between edge of filling and natural tooth.

Smile colour: White reflects light and dark absorbs it. A mouth with silver-mercury (amalgam) fillings in many of teeth will present an overall dull grey colour that absorbs light and therefore looks dark. It’s another sign of ageing.

Signs of ageing – your lips Over time lips lose muscle tone and become thinner and narrower. The top lip can sag, covering more of upper teeth. The lower lip may also drop, showing more of lower teeth.