Audio

Transcript:

Susan Almeida, from WJBC AM1230’s show the Broad View, interviewed Dr. Deoskar and me on Saturday, March 6, 2010.  It was pretty exciting to be on the radio and sit in the studio.

Susan: I want to welcome to the Broad View, Dr. Deoskar, who is a geriatrician in town and his son Anand who has had a really interesting time getting in shape. Dr. Deoskar, welcome to the Broad View. It is wonderful to have you.  Now you have a Successful Aging Center because you are telling people how to successfully age and they needed to learn more about it. Is that how you started the Successful Aging Center?

Dr. I ran out of effective treatments because people have established chronic diseases which progress and we don’t really have a good solution once we get established advanced chronic disease. So, I thought, how am I going to help people aging well? That’s how I got interested in healthy, active aging and found out that we don’t have to have a lot of these conditions in the first place. There is a concept of compression of morbidity. What it means is that you are going to get chronic diseases…why not push them towards the last two or three years. Until that time, you should enjoy life, be active and productive. What is inevitable, you don’t have to have for 10 years.

Susan: Well, people probably think that it’s inevitable that they would get sick so when they start to feel a little bit sick, maybe they just give into it too soon. Is that what you are saying?

Dr: I don’t think they give in. They probably may not know what to do about it. Some of the people may be just giving up, but most others really feel mistakenly that getting a lot of medical care might get them out of this. Well, medical care is essential, sometimes it is very useful. But, it can’t be very useful if you don’t look after many other things that doctors don’t look after.

Susan: So, how long should people live, do you think?

Dr: Well, there are several things that we need to understand. One is, what is the estimated maximum human life span. A lot of scientists and gerontologists have come to the conclusion that at this point our maximum lifespan is probably 120 years.

Susan: Whoa!

Dr: Our life expectancy at birth is going up gradually. During the times of Romans it was about 22 years. At the beginning of last century, about 1900, it was about 48 years and we have gained about 30 years of life expectancy in the last century.

Susan: Well, if we’ve gained that much in the last century, then when should people start to think that they are getting old?

Dr: I don’t think they should start thinking they are getting old at all. In fact, they should know that the aging process starts at 25 or about that time.

Susan: Now, what do you mean by that, the aging process? They used to say that when you are born you start to actually die.

Dr: Well, you are coming closer to the end, right from conception, but you are not growing old until almost 25. You are growing, but not getting old. At about 25, we start the process. It’s like the seed of aging is sown by that time.

Susan: What is manifested by that ‘starting to get old.’

Dr: It doesn’t manifest unless you really do a very deep study about an individual, but this is the knowledge that scientists have given to us, that the aging process in the body starts at about 25. As you go more and more, 30, 35, 40, we can then start seeing and feeling changes. But, a lot of people don’t feel, they don’t necessarily feel that they are getting old, so they don’t feel the need to do anything about it.

Susan: So, we kind of contribute to our aging prematurely? Would you say that’s a fair statement?

Dr: The speed of aging is something that we can change. We can slow it down, or we can accelerate it by a lot of decisions we make.

Susan: Now, your son happened to do that, I think. Anand Deoskar, let’s bring you in here. You kind of thought that you have retarded your aging.

Anand: I definitely believe so, I mean, I was on the brink of disaster, I guess, if you put it that way. I was leading a pretty unhealthy lifestyle.

Susan: Like what?

Anand: In the sense that I wasn’t eating very well. I would eat out a lot, and whenever I was eating I was overeating. I wasn’t active. I’m 34 years old right now and when I was in high school, I was kind of athletic, I played a lot of tennis, I was 1st singles tennis player in my high school and I was really into it. I weighed 165 or something like that at that time. After I finished high school and went to college, I kind of stopped. A lot people I think do this, they stop playing sports or whatever, or stop being active, and I certainly was one of those people, and eventually, I gained a lot of weight, I started smoking at some point, and I found myself last year at about 235 pounds which is almost 70 pounds more than what I was in high school, and I was a smoker, I wasn’t eating well, and I wasn’t active.

Susan: And did your body respond to this abuse?

Anand: Yes, it responded in a way… in that I had a heart attack.

Susan: At that age of…

Anand: At the age of 33.

Susan: So your body said, enough of this junk, Anand, and you had a heart attack, and then what happened.

Anand: Well, I had a heart attack and I didn’t know I had a heart attack at the time. I just knew that I had experienced some pain and I wasn’t sure what the reason for that was, so I just made a doctor’s appointment to see what it was about and one thing led to another and they found out that I had a lot of blockage.

Susan: So the blockage led to surgery. What, six bypass surgery?

Anand: Yeah, yeah, I had bypass surgery with 6 bypasses.

Susan: So, how has your life changed since?

Anand: Well, it has changed actually in a positive way. I totally changed as far as my lifestyle. Bypass surgery is a new lease on life. But, it is not a guaranteed pass that you can do whatever you want. It’s not like you call the plumber and then they snake the pipe, or the drain or whatever, and you can go fill it back up, and they can come back and snake it up again. You can’t keep going into the pipe, because we’re not made out of copper tubes, you know… or iron tubes.

Susan: That’s a good pictures. So, you really have to stop abusing your body, which you are.

Anand: Which I am, absolutely.

Susan: So, you’ve lost a lot of weight, you look great by the way.

Anand: I appreciate that.

Susan: I’m really struck by what you say about eating out. Would you explain that?

Anand: You know, there’s a big draw to eating out. It’s a lot of fun, you don’t have to do anything, you just go drive somewhere, you get to spend time with somebody and somebody waits on you hand and foot, and they give you all this food, and it’s pretty tasty food. It’s really a lot of fun just to go out, especially when you’re young. So, I was eating out a lot, it’s convenient, I thought it was cheaper. Which it isn’t by the way. Basically it is very loaded. Eating out is really a loaded thing. There’s not really a lot of options. It’s almost like anywhere you go the worst menu items in almost any place will be almost equally as horrible for you. It’s unbelievable when you look at some of the numbers as to how much… like there are certain food items that you can eat at certain places which literally have twice as many calories than what you should probably eat in a meal.

Susan: And we don’t know that.

Anand: We don’t even realize it. The problem too is that even though it’s twice as many calories, even the content of those calories are really bad for you.

Susan: So, have you stopped eating out totally?

Anand: Pretty much, I would say 99.9%, yes.

Susan: Have you found anything that you’ve found that you and your wife can eat?

Anand: We go to… I wish I remember the name of the place, it’s that new sushi place?

Susan: Is sushi good?

Susan: I want to welcome to the Broad View, Dr. Deoskar, who is a geriatrician in town and his son Anand who has had a really interesting time getting in shape. Dr. Deoskar, welcome to the Broad View. It is wonderful to have you.  Now you have a Successful Aging Center because you are telling people how to successfully age and they needed to learn more about it. Is that how you started the Successful Aging Center?

Dr. I ran out of effective treatments because people have established chronic diseases which progress and we don’t really have a good solution once we get established advanced chronic disease. So, I thought, how am I going to help people aging well? That’s how I got interested in healthy, active aging and found out that we don’t have to have a lot of these conditions in the first place. There is a concept of compression of morbidity. What it means is that you are going to get chronic diseases…why not push them towards the last two or three years. Until that time, you should enjoy life, be active and productive. What is inevitable, you don’t have to have for 10 years.

Susan: Well, people probably think that it’s inevitable that they would get sick so when they start to feel a little bit sick, maybe they just give into it too soon. Is that what you are saying?

Dr: I don’t think they give in. They probably may not know what to do about it. Some of the people may be just giving up, but most others really feel mistakenly that getting a lot of medical care might get them out of this. Well, medical care is essential, sometimes it is very useful. But, it can’t be very useful if you don’t look after many other things that doctors don’t look after.

Susan: So, how long should people live, do you think?

Dr: Well, there are several things that we need to understand. One is, what is the estimated maximum human life span. A lot of scientists and gerontologists have come to the conclusion that at this point our maximum lifespan is probably 120 years.

Susan: Whoa!

Dr: Our life expectancy at birth is going up gradually. During the times of Romans it was about 22 years. At the beginning of last century, about 1900, it was about 48 years and we have gained about 30 years of life expectancy in the last century.

Susan: Well, if we’ve gained that much in the last century, then when should people start to think that they are getting old?

Dr: I don’t think they should start thinking they are getting old at all. In fact, they should know that the aging process starts at 25 or about that time.

Susan: Now, what do you mean by that, the aging process? They used to say that when you are born you start to actually die.

Dr: Well, you are coming closer to the end, right from conception, but you are not growing old until almost 25. You are growing, but not getting old. At about 25, we start the process. It’s like the seed of aging is sown by that time.

Susan: What is manifested by that ‘starting to get old.’

Dr: It doesn’t manifest unless you really do a very deep study about an individual, but this is the knowledge that scientists have given to us, that the aging process in the body starts at about 25. As you go more and more, 30, 35, 40, we can then start seeing and feeling changes. But, a lot of people don’t feel, they don’t necessarily feel that they are getting old, so they don’t feel the need to do anything about it.

Susan: So, we kind of contribute to our aging prematurely? Would you say that’s a fair statement?

Dr: The speed of aging is something that we can change. We can slow it down, or we can accelerate it by a lot of decisions we make.

Susan: Now, your son happened to do that, I think. Anand Deoskar, let’s bring you in here. You kind of thought that you have retarded your aging.

Anand: I definitely believe so, I mean, I was on the brink of disaster, I guess, if you put it that way. I was leading a pretty unhealthy lifestyle.

Susan: Like what?

Anand: In the sense that I wasn’t eating very well. I would eat out a lot, and whenever I was eating I was overeating. I wasn’t active. I’m 34 years old right now and when I was in high school, I was kind of athletic, I played a lot of tennis, I was 1st singles tennis player in my high school and I was really into it. I weighed 165 or something like that at that time. After I finished high school and went to college, I kind of stopped. A lot people I think do this, they stop playing sports or whatever, or stop being active, and I certainly was one of those people, and eventually, I gained a lot of weight, I started smoking at some point, and I found myself last year at about 235 pounds which is almost 70 pounds more than what I was in high school, and I was a smoker, I wasn’t eating well, and I wasn’t active.

Susan: And did your body respond to this abuse?

Anand: Yes, it responded in a way… in that I had a heart attack.

Susan: At that age of…

Anand: At the age of 33.

Susan: So your body said, enough of this junk, Anand, and you had a heart attack, and then what happened.

Anand: Well, I had a heart attack and I didn’t know I had a heart attack at the time. I just knew that I had experienced some pain and I wasn’t sure what the reason for that was, so I just made a doctor’s appointment to see what it was about and one thing led to another and they found out that I had a lot of blockage.

Susan: So the blockage led to surgery. What, six bypass surgery?

Anand: Yeah, yeah, I had bypass surgery with 6 bypasses.

Susan: So, how has your life changed since?

Anand: Well, it has changed actually in a positive way. I totally changed as far as my lifestyle. Bypass surgery is a new lease on life. But, it is not a guaranteed pass that you can do whatever you want. It’s not like you call the plumber and then they snake the pipe, or the drain or whatever, and you can go fill it back up, and they can come back and snake it up again. You can’t keep going into the pipe, because we’re not made out of copper tubes, you know… or iron tubes.

Susan: That’s a good pictures. So, you really have to stop abusing your body, which you are.

Anand: Which I am, absolutely.

Susan: So, you’ve lost a lot of weight, you look great by the way.

Anand: I appreciate that.

Susan: I’m really struck by what you say about eating out. Would you explain that?

Anand: You know, there’s a big draw to eating out. It’s a lot of fun, you don’t have to do anything, you just go drive somewhere, you get to spend time with somebody and somebody waits on you hand and foot, and they give you all this food, and it’s pretty tasty food. It’s really a lot of fun just to go out, especially when you’re young. So, I was eating out a lot, it’s convenient, I thought it was cheaper. Which it isn’t by the way. Basically it is very loaded. Eating out is really a loaded thing. There’s not really a lot of options. It’s almost like anywhere you go the worst menu items in almost any place will be almost equally as horrible for you. It’s unbelievable when you look at some of the numbers as to how much… like there are certain food items that you can eat at certain places which literally have twice as many calories than what you should probably eat in a meal.

Susan: And we don’t know that.

Anand: We don’t even realize it. The problem too is that even though it’s twice as many calories, even the content of those calories are really bad for you.

Susan: So, have you stopped eating out totally?

Anand: Pretty much, I would say 99.9%, yes.

Susan: Have you found anything that you’ve found that you and your wife can eat?

Anand: We go to… I wish I remember the name of the place, it’s that new sushi place?

Susan: Is sushi good?

Susan: I want to welcome to the Broad View, Dr. Deoskar, who is a geriatrician in town and his son Anand who has had a really interesting time getting in shape. Dr. Deoskar, welcome to the Broad View. It is wonderful to have you.  Now you have a Successful Aging Center because you are telling people how to successfully age and they needed to learn more about it. Is that how you started the Successful Aging Center?

Dr. I ran out of effective treatments because people have established chronic diseases which progress and we don’t really have a good solution once we get established advanced chronic disease. So, I thought, how am I going to help people aging well? That’s how I got interested in healthy, active aging and found out that we don’t have to have a lot of these conditions in the first place. There is a concept of compression of morbidity. What it means is that you are going to get chronic diseases…why not push them towards the last two or three years. Until that time, you should enjoy life, be active and productive. What is inevitable, you don’t have to have for 10 years.

Susan: Well, people probably think that it’s inevitable that they would get sick so when they start to feel a little bit sick, maybe they just give into it too soon. Is that what you are saying?

Dr: I don’t think they give in. They probably may not know what to do about it. Some of the people may be just giving up, but most others really feel mistakenly that getting a lot of medical care might get them out of this. Well, medical care is essential, sometimes it is very useful. But, it can’t be very useful if you don’t look after many other things that doctors don’t look after.

Susan: So, how long should people live, do you think?

Dr: Well, there are several things that we need to understand. One is, what is the estimated maximum human life span. A lot of scientists and gerontologists have come to the conclusion that at this point our maximum lifespan is probably 120 years.

Susan: Whoa!

Dr: Our life expectancy at birth is going up gradually. During the times of Romans it was about 22 years. At the beginning of last century, about 1900, it was about 48 years and we have gained about 30 years of life expectancy in the last century.

Susan: Well, if we’ve gained that much in the last century, then when should people start to think that they are getting old?

Dr: I don’t think they should start thinking they are getting old at all. In fact, they should know that the aging process starts at 25 or about that time.

Susan: Now, what do you mean by that, the aging process? They used to say that when you are born you start to actually die.

Dr: Well, you are coming closer to the end, right from conception, but you are not growing old until almost 25. You are growing, but not getting old. At about 25, we start the process. It’s like the seed of aging is sown by that time.

Susan: What is manifested by that ‘starting to get old.’

Dr: It doesn’t manifest unless you really do a very deep study about an individual, but this is the knowledge that scientists have given to us, that the aging process in the body starts at about 25. As you go more and more, 30, 35, 40, we can then start seeing and feeling changes. But, a lot of people don’t feel, they don’t necessarily feel that they are getting old, so they don’t feel the need to do anything about it.

Susan: So, we kind of contribute to our aging prematurely? Would you say that’s a fair statement?

Dr: The speed of aging is something that we can change. We can slow it down, or we can accelerate it by a lot of decisions we make.

Susan: Now, your son happened to do that, I think. Anand Deoskar, let’s bring you in here. You kind of thought that you have retarded your aging.

Anand: I definitely believe so, I mean, I was on the brink of disaster, I guess, if you put it that way. I was leading a pretty unhealthy lifestyle.

Susan: Like what?

Anand: In the sense that I wasn’t eating very well. I would eat out a lot, and whenever I was eating I was overeating. I wasn’t active. I’m 34 years old right now and when I was in high school, I was kind of athletic, I played a lot of tennis, I was 1st singles tennis player in my high school and I was really into it. I weighed 165 or something like that at that time. After I finished high school and went to college, I kind of stopped. A lot people I think do this, they stop playing sports or whatever, or stop being active, and I certainly was one of those people, and eventually, I gained a lot of weight, I started smoking at some point, and I found myself last year at about 235 pounds which is almost 70 pounds more than what I was in high school, and I was a smoker, I wasn’t eating well, and I wasn’t active.

Susan: And did your body respond to this abuse?

Anand: Yes, it responded in a way… in that I had a heart attack.

Susan: At that age of…

Anand: At the age of 33.

Susan: So your body said, enough of this junk, Anand, and you had a heart attack, and then what happened.

Anand: Well, I had a heart attack and I didn’t know I had a heart attack at the time. I just knew that I had experienced some pain and I wasn’t sure what the reason for that was, so I just made a doctor’s appointment to see what it was about and one thing led to another and they found out that I had a lot of blockage.

Susan: So the blockage led to surgery. What, six bypass surgery?

Anand: Yeah, yeah, I had bypass surgery with 6 bypasses.

Susan: So, how has your life changed since?

Anand: Well, it has changed actually in a positive way. I totally changed as far as my lifestyle. Bypass surgery is a new lease on life. But, it is not a guaranteed pass that you can do whatever you want. It’s not like you call the plumber and then they snake the pipe, or the drain or whatever, and you can go fill it back up, and they can come back and snake it up again. You can’t keep going into the pipe, because we’re not made out of copper tubes, you know… or iron tubes.

Susan: That’s a good pictures. So, you really have to stop abusing your body, which you are.

Anand: Which I am, absolutely.

Susan: So, you’ve lost a lot of weight, you look great by the way.

Anand: I appreciate that.

Susan: I’m really struck by what you say about eating out. Would you explain that?

Anand: You know, there’s a big draw to eating out. It’s a lot of fun, you don’t have to do anything, you just go drive somewhere, you get to spend time with somebody and somebody waits on you hand and foot, and they give you all this food, and it’s pretty tasty food. It’s really a lot of fun just to go out, especially when you’re young. So, I was eating out a lot, it’s convenient, I thought it was cheaper. Which it isn’t by the way. Basically it is very loaded. Eating out is really a loaded thing. There’s not really a lot of options. It’s almost like anywhere you go the worst menu items in almost any place will be almost equally as horrible for you. It’s unbelievable when you look at some of the numbers as to how much… like there are certain food items that you can eat at certain places which literally have twice as many calories than what you should probably eat in a meal.

Susan: And we don’t know that.

Anand: We don’t even realize it. The problem too is that even though it’s twice as many calories, even the content of those calories are really bad for you.

Susan: So, have you stopped eating out totally?

Anand: Pretty much, I would say 99.9%, yes.

Susan: Have you found anything that you’ve found that you and your wife can eat?

Anand: We go to… I wish I remember the name of the place, it’s that new sushi place?

Susan: Is sushi good?

Anand: You know, it’s not that bad. I can’t eat it all the time or anything. I’ve basically eaten out twice in the last 5 months. So, you can get an idea, when I talk about eating out, I mean we’re talking about out of eating maybe 500 meals, I have gone for two meals, eating out. So, the ratio is very small if you look at it that way.  The thing is, you have to be very knowledgable about what you are choosing. You have to know what you are choosing.

Susan: And I don’t think we really can. Now they say they put this stuff on the restaurant websites, but then they’ve also found that some of this stuff isn’t that accurate. I was just reading this week in the Chicago Tribune about how they actually went through the nutritional listings on things and they aren’t really accurate!

Anand: That’s just crazy. You read something, and you go ‘Well, that’s how it is’, but then you find out it’s not even that.

Susan: It’s horrible. It’s 11:54 on WJBC and WJBC.com. Dr. Uday and his son Anand Deoskar are talking about aging well, aging successfully, changing your life in order to live longer.

I want to welcome you back to the Broad View. Dr. Uday Deoskar and his son Anand are here. Am I aging gracefully or not?

Dr: Oh, you are aging wonderfully. You are just a little bit pressed for time, so you want quick information and you can’t recall a name that quickly even when you are young, you know.

Susan: There you go, that’s radio you know. We move it. We move, we move.  We were having a great discussion before the CBS news and you are the proprietor of the Successful Aging Center in addition to being a physician of the elderly. You also have the fitness learning center. Now, these were formulated in response to your practice with the elderly. Can you tell us a little bit about those?

Dr: When I figured out that my medical treatments have reached a limit and that is not really the main answer for people staying healthy, then I researched this whole area of Successful Aging and I fortunately have a wife who is so well trained in lifestyle issues such as nutrition, exercise, meditation, tai chi, yoga. So, we decided that we should offer something that will make a fundamental difference in people’s lives if they are interested and if they follow up on that so that they won’t have so many chronic diseases and they will keep functioning better for much longer with that kind of program. So, we developed that program, because I used to give talks about health and people would say, “Yes, everything you are saying is true, but what do I do next?” and I really did not have an answer because I didn’t know there was any place where you would have comprehensive services for that. So, we started this center about three years ago, a little less, and we are finding it’s very very rewarding, and we have a lot of people who have gone through our courses and they are really happy about it.

Susan: What are some of the courses that you offer at the center?

Dr: Well, we have a course through Heartland Community College on Successful Aging itself but there are several models of that. We have workshops, we have lectures, we have skills-training. Attached with our Successful Aging Center is also a Fitness Learning Center that is run by my wife, Anita. We teach people all forms of fitness. More than teaching just the fitness, we give them fundamental knowledge – the knowledge is very empowering. Once you get the knowledge, you know what exercise you like, what you can do – some things you can do on the road, some things you can do at home. So, it opens up a lot of options. We give a very complete education and skills training.

Susan: Dr. Uday Deoskar, a geriatrician for 25+ years, has different ways to get old. That’s what you said that that’s what you do – you figure out different ways to get old. Can you explain that a little bit?

Dr: You have to understand… Aging is not one thing. Aging is a complex process. The outcome of it, at the end, eventually we get old but the process starts early. We all age chronologically the same way, after one year we are one year older, but physiologically, we age differently based on our genetics, based on our environment, based on our lifestyle choices, stress management and all these factors. So, somebody who is age 60 may be performing physiologically at a much younger age, like he might be 45. Somebody might behave or act or perform like they are 70 years of age, so that is a variation. Psychologically, though, most people do not feel their age. Most people. Because, we don’t have really any feeling that we are getting old, because we feel we are the same, we have not changed. Somebody else can see the change in us, but we don’t. So, we don’t think we are aging, we don’t feel we are aging. And spiritually, there is no aging. Really, if you are in the right spirit, you feel that that is irrelevant, you are the same person spiritually. So, this is how in different ways we can age.

Susan: So, spiritually, there is no age, you said.

Dr: If you have the right spirituality.

Susan: You don’t get old. Are you saying that someone can actually physically age, but not feel that they are spiritually aging?

Dr: I have seen people like that. You know, over the years, there is no difference in how happy they are, irrespective of very physical, complicated medical conditions, they are smiling, they are happy, they are contented, what else can it be, but spirit?

Susan: Now, here’s a thing… I’ve heard people say that if they get Alzheimer’s disease, just to shoot them. What do you say to those people?

Dr: I think they don’t know about life. They have drawn very quick conclusions about life, because if you ask the Alzheimer’s patient, this is what that person thinks, the patient with Alzheimer’s will say shoot that person, why me?

Susan: OK.

Dr. I don’t think it makes any sense.

Susan: Now what about when a person gets older and gets to be in pain, do some people want to die more than others when they get to be in pain.

Dr: It is extremely rare that people want to die. People want pain relief. We are becoming smarter and smarter but not perfect, not even close to perfection in managing pain, but we are really hopeful that once we find out ways to treat pain… For example, there are many patients who are in pain who accept hospice services, and we’ve got wonderful hospice services in this town, there are several of them, and really the hospice people are trained to take care of discomfort and pain. And, although we cannot cure the condition, people are still having some pain, we do focus on taking care of the pain. And those people, definitely once the pain is controlled, are satisfied that their problems are being looked into, they are much happier. We can’t say [neccesarily] that they are pain free, but they are far better than what they started with.

Susan: Now, some people who are younger, say the daughters and sons of people who are getting older, when they see their parents in pain, they sometimes say, ‘it’s time for them to go.’ Do you encourage that, or do you find that people who get their pain managed should not be encouraged to try to die. I don’t mean to try to kill themselves. I mean, is there a way that people just let go when they feel their family wants them to.

Dr: It’s not the family alone. Family has a great influence and great relevance in the decision making of a person, but it is eventually the person who is suffering or who is the main thing there, to decide, you know, given options. If that person thinks that just existing is too much struggle and he or she wants to give up, we simply have to support whatever life or whatever things we can do, but we can’t really decide for that person. Now, when that person cannot decide, there is a legal authority that is set up, so decision-making process then shifts to that person.

Susan: Yeah, in Illinois, we don’t have any solution to wanting to die or wanting to kill yourself, right, that’s not legal in Illinois.

Dr: Absolutely not.

Susan: You try to keep people alive for as long as possible.

Dr. And ethically and medically, we don’t say that we should kill people, not at all. We have to respect that person’s dignity and wishes and see whether we can have some way of accomodating and relieving their distress, that’s the main point.

Susan: Dr. Uday Deoskar is with me on the Broad View on WJBC and also his son Anand Deoskar who changed his life and I’m sure is hoping to prolong it now that you’ve got a better type of a lifestyle, Anand.

Anand: Absolutely

Susan: Now, what would you tell people is some of the really important things that you’ve learned since you’ve gone through your transportation.

Anand: I think the most important thing I’ve learned is that it’s really not as hard as I thought it would be. Actually, the most important thing was the commitment.

Susan: People want their Cheetoh’s though, Anand.

Anand: They want their Cheetoh’s because, they’ve become a slave to their Cheetoh’s, they think that that’s what they want. Because, they haven’t opened their mind to all the options that nature has to provide as far as the cornucopia of all kinds of infinite amounts of food. I mean, there is just so much food out there that is good for you. In fact, there is more food that is good for you than there is food that is bad for you. If you look at all the food is bad for you, it is actually made up of a much smaller list of ingredients. If you look at all the foods that are good for you there are a lot more ingredients in that list. I think people should challenge themselves a little bit.

Susan: OK, do we know what’s good for us?

Anand: I think we do.

Susan: OK, but what’s your main message.

Anand: My main message is that you have to really make a commitment that it’s important to you to be healthy. And, if you have that commitment, and if you have a strong commitment towards that, you will seek out the right answers and you will have success in your transformative experience or getting into health. You will have the success.

Susan: Now, do you have an idea of how much you have elongated your life since you changed your lifestyle from eating junk and going out and being overweight and smoking?

Anand: Well, obviously I’m not able to look into the future through my crystal ball and all that, because I don’t have one and I don’t know how to read it even if I did.

Susan: Well, you look pretty smart, but I guess you can’t.

Anand: But… I don’t know what the situation holds for me in the future but I could have increased my lifespan by anywhere from 10 to 50 years.

Susan: 10 to 50?  Do you agree with that, Dr. Deoskar, that he could have elongated or lengthened his life by as much as 50 years.

Dr: I think that the range he has described is quite correct. What are the odds that it is prolonged by 10 years is absolutely no question about it, that I am certain that that is the case. In terms of 50, it depends on so many other things. Nobody can really predict anybody’s longevity to a great extent unless they are very very close to dying. That’s the only time we doctors are accurate in telling how long somebody is going to live. But, the rest of the time, there are too many factors, variables that decide. But, is it possible that he might have extended for 50 years, yes.

Susan: Wow. Now, how about the phrase, “Use it or lose it.” What does that have to do with what you do in your practice?

Dr: It is such a useful term. It is so applicable. It is almost unbelievable. It is applicable to so many things. It is applicable to our brain, it is applicable to our muscles, heart, and anything, you know physical performance. It is even applicable to sex. Although we are not going to delve into this today, it is true that people who are active in their sexuality, they retain it longer.

Susan: And by longer, are you saying… See, those of us who are a little bit younger probably think that ‘use it or lose it’ might go to maybe 60, and maybe even people younger than me might think ‘Oh gosh, you’re talking about 40 year olds here’ but, what are you taking about?

Dr: I am not talking about physical sexual performance. I am talking about sexuality which has a much broader definition. As people age, they may not be interested in the same things that they were interested when they were 20 or 30 years of age. Sexuality can mean [something] quite different.  The question is, does the sexual relationship give you joy, energy, and excitement in life? Yes, it could, and it may be very different at different stages in your life, at different ages in your life, how much skills you develop, what kind of relationship you develop. Life itself is complex, humans are particularly complex, and humans in certain societies, advanced or developed societies, have even added complexities to them. I can’t really tell up to what age, but we know that people beyond the age of 85 and 90 do have sexual activities still.

Susan: Wow, that’s a pretty good age.

Dr: So, you can’t define sexuality.

Susan: So, do we want to live longer, or do we want to retard aging? Can we say either/or?

Dr: We want to enjoy live as long as we can. Whether that is through increasing our longevity, whether it is through increasing quality of life… But, you know, if you improve the healthful quality life, you are going to live a little bit longer and you are just going to postpone some of the unneccessary morbidities to the end of the life. There are some things you can’t predict… like, if somebody is going to get some kind of cancer, you can reduce the chances, but you can’t tell about accidents and things like that. But, overall, you will end up increasing both – the quality of life and the length.

Susan: Glad to welcome back to the Broad View for just a couple minutes more. Dr. Uday Deoskar and Anand Deoskar and they have changed their lives around. Anand is involved with the Fitness Learning Center and there are several programs you would like to talk about. What do you do there, Anand.

Anand: I’m the office coordinator for both the Fitness Learning Center and the Successful Aging Center. The Fitness Learning Center is basically pretty much by my mom who is an exercise physiologist, she has a Master’s Degree in that. She’s a nutritionist as well, and she teaches different exercise classes. She teaches yoga, tai chi, strength training, nutrition consultations.

Susan: All in the Fitness Learning Center with the goal of keeping people younger longer?

Anand: Yeah, just to help people’s health, to improve everybody’s health, to keep people in a good energy, because when people are active, when people are doing some of these great exercises, they feel better.

Susan: Now, what ages come to your Fitness Learning Center.

Anand: We have all ages, actually. We have from children to the elderly. We used to have some Children’s Yoga classes. We have Tai Chi classes. We have strength training classes. We have group classes, individual classes. It’s open to anybody.

Susan: And how can people get a hold of you if they would like to have a class.

Anand: They can call us up. Our phone number 309-662-8082 and they can catch us on the web at www.fitnesslearningcenter.com

Susan: Now you’ve changed your life quite a bit, and so what’s the message you want to make sure people hear today from you.

Anand: The message I want to say is to really try to take charge of your health as soon as you can. I mean, you don’t want to have to go under the knife. As far and distant as it may seem, it is very common nowadays for people to get heart disease and obesity and heart disease are increasing quite a bit. A large reason for that is because our health habits have changed and it is really important for us to really wake up and see what’s going on immediately. It’s such a traumatic experience having to have a surgery or having to have a heart attack.

Susan: And you can speak from personal experience on that – 6 bypass surgery.

Anand: Yeah, it was something completely avoidable. So, I really want other people to realize and feel empowered, that you know what ‘I don’t have these things right now.’ It’s just the worst feeling to find out that you have all these problems, that you were diagnosed… I was diagnosed with diabetes, I was diagnosed with heart disease. I was on the surgery table. It was a seven hour surgery. I had to recover for a week, I could barely move, I could barely walk, barely breathe.

Susan: Now, take us till today and talk about your cholesterol level, your blood pressure level, what are you currently doing?

Anand: It’s been a spectacular change because I’ve made a radical lifestyle change. My diet has been very strict and I’ve been able to have the best information about nutrition from my family. My father being a doctor and a geriatrician, and my mother being a nutritionist and exercise physiologist – they were able to give me a nutrition plan day by day. When I came out of surgery, I was living with them for a while and they were mapping out my entire meal-plan, day by day, meal by meal, ingredient by ingredient.

Susan: I was much impressed with how your cholesterol changed.

Anand: My cholesterol went down from like 263 total cholesterol to 103. So almost a 160 points I got down my total cholesterol which is really a massive amount.

Susan: It is a massive amount. I’ve never heard of anybody with cholesterol that low, Anand.

Anand: Well, first you’ve got to remember my cholesterol started really high too. And..

Susan: That’s my normal cholesterol. Sorry. Uh-Oh.

Anand: That’s just one factor in an overall picture. I don’t want anybody to feel that this one number indicates on thing. It’s a big picture. If you have a huge portrait, and one tiny portion of it is black, you can’t say the whole painting is black. You have to look at the whole portrait to get an idea of what it is. So, your total cholesterol is not indicative necessarily of your total health picture. That being said, all my levels went down. I’ve almost lost 50 pounds. My HDL, which is the good cholesterol, has gone up. My LDL which is the bad cholesterol has gone considerably down. And, my triglyceride level has gone down three or four hundred points.

Susan: You’re a poster-boy for your parent’s businesses. I think it’s wonderful that you’ve had such a success and I thank you so much for being on the Broad View, Anand

Anand: You’re most welcome. It’s been a pleasure.

Susan: And, Dr. Deoskar, what message would you like to leave with people out there, who are inevitably aging?

Dr: Well, I have got two very brief messages. One of them is that life can be very enjoyable almost up till the end. It’s a low-tech, high touch, low cost way to do it. The other thing is, aging well today in the context of economy and what is going to happen to our children’s economic status, it is almost patriotic to stay well and to maximize our wellness so that we don’t spend as much money. An individual can save thousands of dollars as soon as they start this process of aging well, and aging starts at 25, not at 60. A community can save millions of dollars of people live healthy, and a nation can save billions and billions of dollars. What I would suggest is that we do have through Heartland Community COllege, a Successful Aging Boot-camp, starting from April 15, after you’ve finished your taxes and all that. It is a boot-camp, and there is a lot of education with it, but there are specific plans and specific recommendations for what you must do during the course that will motivate you to know that it is not too hard and it’s enjoyable.

Susan: Dr. Uday Deoskar, it has been wonderful to have you with me on the Broad View and Anand Deoskar, your story is inspiring and it’s just amazing. Any final thoughts?

Anand: My final thought is… I must tell you that we are having a weight loss boot camp which we are starting, and I’ve lost almost 50 pounds in 4-5 months which is an extravagant amount, but we have a healthy, sensible way of losing weight with our nutrition and doctor experts designing the whole program. It’s very unique and we hope to take it nation-wide at some point. So, join in when we get started. It’s going to be at the lowest cost that you can possibly imagine for the future. It’s going to get bigger and bigger as we go on. So find out about it at www.fitnesslearningcenter.com. It starts on March 31st, it’s once a week, it’s 2 hour a week for 12 weeks and it will just be a lot easier to have coaches and people with you one-on-one, to help you get through such a difficult transition and we will make it easy and we’ll make it fun.

Susan: Thank you, so it’s the Deoskars and they have wonderful things going on for you if you want to live longer and live more successfully. Thank you very much for being on the Broad View on WJBC today.

Dr: Thanks for having us here, and I would really like to thank all my patients and their families who have taught me a lot about aging.

Susan: Thank you. You know, it’s not that bad. I can’t eat it all the time or anything. I’ve basically eaten out twice in the last 5 months. So, you can get an idea, when I talk about eating out, I mean we’re talking about out of eating maybe 500 meals, I have gone for two meals, eating out. So, the ratio is very small if you look at it that way.  The thing is, you have to be very knowledgable about what you are choosing. You have to know what you are choosing.

Susan: And I don’t think we really can. Now they say they put this stuff on the restaurant websites, but then they’ve also found that some of this stuff isn’t that accurate. I was just reading this week in the Chicago Tribune about how they actually went through the nutritional listings on things and they aren’t really accurate!

Anand: That’s just crazy. You read something, and you go ‘Well, that’s how it is’, but then you find out it’s not even that.

Susan: It’s horrible. It’s 11:54 on WJBC and WJBC.com. Dr. Uday and his son Anand Deoskar are talking about aging well, aging successfully, changing your life in order to live longer.

I want to welcome you back to the Broad View. Dr. Uday Deoskar and his son Anand are here. Am I aging gracefully or not?

Dr: Oh, you are aging wonderfully. You are just a little bit pressed for time, so you want quick information and you can’t recall a name that quickly even when you are young, you know.

Susan: There you go, that’s radio you know. We move it. We move, we move.  We were having a great discussion before the CBS news and you are the proprietor of the Successful Aging Center in addition to being a physician of the elderly. You also have the fitness learning center. Now, these were formulated in response to your practice with the elderly. Can you tell us a little bit about those?

Dr: When I figured out that my medical treatments have reached a limit and that is not really the main answer for people staying healthy, then I researched this whole area of Successful Aging and I fortunately have a wife who is so well trained in lifestyle issues such as nutrition, exercise, meditation, tai chi, yoga. So, we decided that we should offer something that will make a fundamental difference in people’s lives if they are interested and if they follow up on that so that they won’t have so many chronic diseases and they will keep functioning better for much longer with that kind of program. So, we developed that program, because I used to give talks about health and people would say, “Yes, everything you are saying is true, but what do I do next?” and I really did not have an answer because I didn’t know there was any place where you would have comprehensive services for that. So, we started this center about three years ago, a little less, and we are finding it’s very very rewarding, and we have a lot of people who have gone through our courses and they are really happy about it.

Susan: What are some of the courses that you offer at the center?

Dr: Well, we have a course through Heartland Community College on Successful Aging itself but there are several models of that. We have workshops, we have lectures, we have skills-training. Attached with our Successful Aging Center is also a Fitness Learning Center that is run by my wife, Anita. We teach people all forms of fitness. More than teaching just the fitness, we give them fundamental knowledge – the knowledge is very empowering. Once you get the knowledge, you know what exercise you like, what you can do – some things you can do on the road, some things you can do at home. So, it opens up a lot of options. We give a very complete education and skills training.

Susan: Dr. Uday Deoskar, a geriatrician for 25+ years, has different ways to get old. That’s what you said that that’s what you do – you figure out different ways to get old. Can you explain that a little bit?

Dr: You have to understand… Aging is not one thing. Aging is a complex process. The outcome of it, at the end, eventually we get old but the process starts early. We all age chronologically the same way, after one year we are one year older, but physiologically, we age differently based on our genetics, based on our environment, based on our lifestyle choices, stress management and all these factors. So, somebody who is age 60 may be performing physiologically at a much younger age, like he might be 45. Somebody might behave or act or perform like they are 70 years of age, so that is a variation. Psychologically, though, most people do not feel their age. Most people. Because, we don’t have really any feeling that we are getting old, because we feel we are the same, we have not changed. Somebody else can see the change in us, but we don’t. So, we don’t think we are aging, we don’t feel we are aging. And spiritually, there is no aging. Really, if you are in the right spirit, you feel that that is irrelevant, you are the same person spiritually. So, this is how in different ways we can age.

Susan: So, spiritually, there is no age, you said.

Dr: If you have the right spirituality.

Susan: You don’t get old. Are you saying that someone can actually physically age, but not feel that they are spiritually aging?

Dr: I have seen people like that. You know, over the years, there is no difference in how happy they are, irrespective of very physical, complicated medical conditions, they are smiling, they are happy, they are contented, what else can it be, but spirit?

Susan: Now, here’s a thing… I’ve heard people say that if they get Alzheimer’s disease, just to shoot them. What do you say to those people?

Dr: I think they don’t know about life. They have drawn very quick conclusions about life, because if you ask the Alzheimer’s patient, this is what that person thinks, the patient with Alzheimer’s will say shoot that person, why me?

Susan: OK.

Dr. I don’t think it makes any sense.

Susan: Now what about when a person gets older and gets to be in pain, do some people want to die more than others when they get to be in pain.

Dr: It is extremely rare that people want to die. People want pain relief. We are becoming smarter and smarter but not perfect, not even close to perfection in managing pain, but we are really hopeful that once we find out ways to treat pain… For example, there are many patients who are in pain who accept hospice services, and we’ve got wonderful hospice services in this town, there are several of them, and really the hospice people are trained to take care of discomfort and pain. And, although we cannot cure the condition, people are still having some pain, we do focus on taking care of the pain. And those people, definitely once the pain is controlled, are satisfied that their problems are being looked into, they are much happier. We can’t say [neccesarily] that they are pain free, but they are far better than what they started with.

Susan: Now, some people who are younger, say the daughters and sons of people who are getting older, when they see their parents in pain, they sometimes say, ‘it’s time for them to go.’ Do you encourage that, or do you find that people who get their pain managed should not be encouraged to try to die. I don’t mean to try to kill themselves. I mean, is there a way that people just let go when they feel their family wants them to.

Dr: It’s not the family alone. Family has a great influence and great relevance in the decision making of a person, but it is eventually the person who is suffering or who is the main thing there, to decide, you know, given options. If that person thinks that just existing is too much struggle and he or she wants to give up, we simply have to support whatever life or whatever things we can do, but we can’t really decide for that person. Now, when that person cannot decide, there is a legal authority that is set up, so decision-making process then shifts to that person.

Susan: Yeah, in Illinois, we don’t have any solution to wanting to die or wanting to kill yourself, right, that’s not legal in Illinois.

Dr: Absolutely not.

Susan: You try to keep people alive for as long as possible.

Dr. And ethically and medically, we don’t say that we should kill people, not at all. We have to respect that person’s dignity and wishes and see whether we can have some way of accomodating and relieving their distress, that’s the main point.

Susan: Dr. Uday Deoskar is with me on the Broad View on WJBC and also his son Anand Deoskar who changed his life and I’m sure is hoping to prolong it now that you’ve got a better type of a lifestyle, Anand.

Anand: Absolutely

Susan: Now, what would you tell people is some of the really important things that you’ve learned since you’ve gone through your transportation.

Anand: I think the most important thing I’ve learned is that it’s really not as hard as I thought it would be. Actually, the most important thing was the commitment.

Susan: People want their Cheetoh’s though, Anand.

Anand: They want their Cheetoh’s because, they’ve become a slave to their Cheetoh’s, they think that that’s what they want. Because, they haven’t opened their mind to all the options that nature has to provide as far as the cornucopia of all kinds of infinite amounts of food. I mean, there is just so much food out there that is good for you. In fact, there is more food that is good for you than there is food that is bad for you. If you look at all the food is bad for you, it is actually made up of a much smaller list of ingredients. If you look at all the foods that are good for you there are a lot more ingredients in that list. I think people should challenge themselves a little bit.

Susan: OK, do we know what’s good for us?

Anand: I think we do.

Susan: OK, but what’s your main message.

Anand: My main message is that you have to really make a commitment that it’s important to you to be healthy. And, if you have that commitment, and if you have a strong commitment towards that, you will seek out the right answers and you will have success in your transformative experience or getting into health. You will have the success.

Susan: Now, do you have an idea of how much you have elongated your life since you changed your lifestyle from eating junk and going out and being overweight and smoking?

Anand: Well, obviously I’m not able to look into the future through my crystal ball and all that, because I don’t have one and I don’t know how to read it even if I did.

Susan: Well, you look pretty smart, but I guess you can’t.

Anand: But… I don’t know what the situation holds for me in the future but I could have increased my lifespan by anywhere from 10 to 50 years.

Susan: 10 to 50?  Do you agree with that, Dr. Deoskar, that he could have elongated or lengthened his life by as much as 50 years.

Dr: I think that the range he has described is quite correct. What are the odds that it is prolonged by 10 years is absolutely no question about it, that I am certain that that is the case. In terms of 50, it depends on so many other things. Nobody can really predict anybody’s longevity to a great extent unless they are very very close to dying. That’s the only time we doctors are accurate in telling how long somebody is going to live. But, the rest of the time, there are too many factors, variables that decide. But, is it possible that he might have extended for 50 years, yes.

Susan: Wow. Now, how about the phrase, “Use it or lose it.” What does that have to do with what you do in your practice?

Dr: It is such a useful term. It is so applicable. It is almost unbelievable. It is applicable to so many things. It is applicable to our brain, it is applicable to our muscles, heart, and anything, you know physical performance. It is even applicable to sex. Although we are not going to delve into this today, it is true that people who are active in their sexuality, they retain it longer.

Susan: And by longer, are you saying… See, those of us who are a little bit younger probably think that ‘use it or lose it’ might go to maybe 60, and maybe even people younger than me might think ‘Oh gosh, you’re talking about 40 year olds here’ but, what are you taking about?

Dr: I am not talking about physical sexual performance. I am talking about sexuality which has a much broader definition. As people age, they may not be interested in the same things that they were interested when they were 20 or 30 years of age. Sexuality can mean [something] quite different.  The question is, does the sexual relationship give you joy, energy, and excitement in life? Yes, it could, and it may be very different at different stages in your life, at different ages in your life, how much skills you develop, what kind of relationship you develop. Life itself is complex, humans are particularly complex, and humans in certain societies, advanced or developed societies, have even added complexities to them. I can’t really tell up to what age, but we know that people beyond the age of 85 and 90 do have sexual activities still.

Susan: Wow, that’s a pretty good age.

Dr: So, you can’t define sexuality.

Susan: So, do we want to live longer, or do we want to retard aging? Can we say either/or?

Dr: We want to enjoy live as long as we can. Whether that is through increasing our longevity, whether it is through increasing quality of life… But, you know, if you improve the healthful quality life, you are going to live a little bit longer and you are just going to postpone some of the unneccessary morbidities to the end of the life. There are some things you can’t predict… like, if somebody is going to get some kind of cancer, you can reduce the chances, but you can’t tell about accidents and things like that. But, overall, you will end up increasing both – the quality of life and the length.

Susan: Glad to welcome back to the Broad View for just a couple minutes more. Dr. Uday Deoskar and Anand Deoskar and they have changed their lives around. Anand is involved with the Fitness Learning Center and there are several programs you would like to talk about. What do you do there, Anand.

Anand: I’m the office coordinator for both the Fitness Learning Center and the Successful Aging Center. The Fitness Learning Center is basically pretty much by my mom who is an exercise physiologist, she has a Master’s Degree in that. She’s a nutritionist as well, and she teaches different exercise classes. She teaches yoga, tai chi, strength training, nutrition consultations.

Susan: All in the Fitness Learning Center with the goal of keeping people younger longer?

Anand: Yeah, just to help people’s health, to improve everybody’s health, to keep people in a good energy, because when people are active, when people are doing some of these great exercises, they feel better.

Susan: Now, what ages come to your Fitness Learning Center.

Anand: We have all ages, actually. We have from children to the elderly. We used to have some Children’s Yoga classes. We have Tai Chi classes. We have strength training classes. We have group classes, individual classes. It’s open to anybody.

Susan: And how can people get a hold of you if they would like to have a class.

Anand: They can call us up. Our phone number 309-662-8082 and they can catch us on the web at www.fitnesslearningcenter.com

Susan: Now you’ve changed your life quite a bit, and so what’s the message you want to make sure people hear today from you.

Anand: The message I want to say is to really try to take charge of your health as soon as you can. I mean, you don’t want to have to go under the knife. As far and distant as it may seem, it is very common nowadays for people to get heart disease and obesity and heart disease are increasing quite a bit. A large reason for that is because our health habits have changed and it is really important for us to really wake up and see what’s going on immediately. It’s such a traumatic experience having to have a surgery or having to have a heart attack.

Susan: And you can speak from personal experience on that – 6 bypass surgery.

Anand: Yeah, it was something completely avoidable. So, I really want other people to realize and feel empowered, that you know what ‘I don’t have these things right now.’ It’s just the worst feeling to find out that you have all these problems, that you were diagnosed… I was diagnosed with diabetes, I was diagnosed with heart disease. I was on the surgery table. It was a seven hour surgery. I had to recover for a week, I could barely move, I could barely walk, barely breathe.

Susan: Now, take us till today and talk about your cholesterol level, your blood pressure level, what are you currently doing?

Anand: It’s been a spectacular change because I’ve made a radical lifestyle change. My diet has been very strict and I’ve been able to have the best information about nutrition from my family. My father being a doctor and a geriatrician, and my mother being a nutritionist and exercise physiologist – they were able to give me a nutrition plan day by day. When I came out of surgery, I was living with them for a while and they were mapping out my entire meal-plan, day by day, meal by meal, ingredient by ingredient.

Susan: I was much impressed with how your cholesterol changed.

Anand: My cholesterol went down from like 263 total cholesterol to 103. So almost a 160 points I got down my total cholesterol which is really a massive amount.

Susan: It is a massive amount. I’ve never heard of anybody with cholesterol that low, Anand.

Anand: Well, first you’ve got to remember my cholesterol started really high too. And..

Susan: That’s my normal cholesterol. Sorry. Uh-Oh.

Anand: That’s just one factor in an overall picture. I don’t want anybody to feel that this one number indicates on thing. It’s a big picture. If you have a huge portrait, and one tiny portion of it is black, you can’t say the whole painting is black. You have to look at the whole portrait to get an idea of what it is. So, your total cholesterol is not indicative necessarily of your total health picture. That being said, all my levels went down. I’ve almost lost 50 pounds. My HDL, which is the good cholesterol, has gone up. My LDL which is the bad cholesterol has gone considerably down. And, my triglyceride level has gone down three or four hundred points.

Susan: You’re a poster-boy for your parent’s businesses. I think it’s wonderful that you’ve had such a success and I thank you so much for being on the Broad View, Anand

Anand: You’re most welcome. It’s been a pleasure.

Susan: And, Dr. Deoskar, what message would you like to leave with people out there, who are inevitably aging?

Dr: Well, I have got two very brief messages. One of them is that life can be very enjoyable almost up till the end. It’s a low-tech, high touch, low cost way to do it. The other thing is, aging well today in the context of economy and what is going to happen to our children’s economic status, it is almost patriotic to stay well and to maximize our wellness so that we don’t spend as much money. An individual can save thousands of dollars as soon as they start this process of aging well, and aging starts at 25, not at 60. A community can save millions of dollars of people live healthy, and a nation can save billions and billions of dollars. What I would suggest is that we do have through Heartland Community COllege, a Successful Aging Boot-camp, starting from April 15, after you’ve finished your taxes and all that. It is a boot-camp, and there is a lot of education with it, but there are specific plans and specific recommendations for what you must do during the course that will motivate you to know that it is not too hard and it’s enjoyable.

Susan: Dr. Uday Deoskar, it has been wonderful to have you with me on the Broad View and Anand Deoskar, your story is inspiring and it’s just amazing. Any final thoughts?

Anand: My final thought is… I must tell you that we are having a weight loss boot camp which we are starting, and I’ve lost almost 50 pounds in 4-5 months which is an extravagant amount, but we have a healthy, sensible way of losing weight with our nutrition and doctor experts designing the whole program. It’s very unique and we hope to take it nation-wide at some point. So, join in when we get started. It’s going to be at the lowest cost that you can possibly imagine for the future. It’s going to get bigger and bigger as we go on. So find out about it at www.fitnesslearningcenter.com. It starts on March 31st, it’s once a week, it’s 2 hour a week for 12 weeks and it will just be a lot easier to have coaches and people with you one-on-one, to help you get through such a difficult transition and we will make it easy and we’ll make it fun.

Susan: Thank you, so it’s the Deoskars and they have wonderful things going on for you if you want to live longer and live more successfully. Thank you very much for being on the Broad View on WJBC today.

Dr: Thanks for having us here, and I would really like to thank all my patients and their families who have taught me a lot about aging.

Susan: Thank you. You know, it’s not that bad. I can’t eat it all the time or anything. I’ve basically eaten out twice in the last 5 months. So, you can get an idea, when I talk about eating out, I mean we’re talking about out of eating maybe 500 meals, I have gone for two meals, eating out. So, the ratio is very small if you look at it that way.  The thing is, you have to be very knowledgable about what you are choosing. You have to know what you are choosing.

Susan: And I don’t think we really can. Now they say they put this stuff on the restaurant websites, but then they’ve also found that some of this stuff isn’t that accurate. I was just reading this week in the Chicago Tribune about how they actually went through the nutritional listings on things and they aren’t really accurate!

Anand: That’s just crazy. You read something, and you go ‘Well, that’s how it is’, but then you find out it’s not even that.

Susan: It’s horrible. It’s 11:54 on WJBC and WJBC.com. Dr. Uday and his son Anand Deoskar are talking about aging well, aging successfully, changing your life in order to live longer.

I want to welcome you back to the Broad View. Dr. Uday Deoskar and his son Anand are here. Am I aging gracefully or not?

Dr: Oh, you are aging wonderfully. You are just a little bit pressed for time, so you want quick information and you can’t recall a name that quickly even when you are young, you know.

Susan: There you go, that’s radio you know. We move it. We move, we move.  We were having a great discussion before the CBS news and you are the proprietor of the Successful Aging Center in addition to being a physician of the elderly. You also have the fitness learning center. Now, these were formulated in response to your practice with the elderly. Can you tell us a little bit about those?

Dr: When I figured out that my medical treatments have reached a limit and that is not really the main answer for people staying healthy, then I researched this whole area of Successful Aging and I fortunately have a wife who is so well trained in lifestyle issues such as nutrition, exercise, meditation, tai chi, yoga. So, we decided that we should offer something that will make a fundamental difference in people’s lives if they are interested and if they follow up on that so that they won’t have so many chronic diseases and they will keep functioning better for much longer with that kind of program. So, we developed that program, because I used to give talks about health and people would say, “Yes, everything you are saying is true, but what do I do next?” and I really did not have an answer because I didn’t know there was any place where you would have comprehensive services for that. So, we started this center about three years ago, a little less, and we are finding it’s very very rewarding, and we have a lot of people who have gone through our courses and they are really happy about it.

Susan: What are some of the courses that you offer at the center?

Dr: Well, we have a course through Heartland Community College on Successful Aging itself but there are several models of that. We have workshops, we have lectures, we have skills-training. Attached with our Successful Aging Center is also a Fitness Learning Center that is run by my wife, Anita. We teach people all forms of fitness. More than teaching just the fitness, we give them fundamental knowledge – the knowledge is very empowering. Once you get the knowledge, you know what exercise you like, what you can do – some things you can do on the road, some things you can do at home. So, it opens up a lot of options. We give a very complete education and skills training.

Susan: Dr. Uday Deoskar, a geriatrician for 25+ years, has different ways to get old. That’s what you said that that’s what you do – you figure out different ways to get old. Can you explain that a little bit?

Dr: You have to understand… Aging is not one thing. Aging is a complex process. The outcome of it, at the end, eventually we get old but the process starts early. We all age chronologically the same way, after one year we are one year older, but physiologically, we age differently based on our genetics, based on our environment, based on our lifestyle choices, stress management and all these factors. So, somebody who is age 60 may be performing physiologically at a much younger age, like he might be 45. Somebody might behave or act or perform like they are 70 years of age, so that is a variation. Psychologically, though, most people do not feel their age. Most people. Because, we don’t have really any feeling that we are getting old, because we feel we are the same, we have not changed. Somebody else can see the change in us, but we don’t. So, we don’t think we are aging, we don’t feel we are aging. And spiritually, there is no aging. Really, if you are in the right spirit, you feel that that is irrelevant, you are the same person spiritually. So, this is how in different ways we can age.

Susan: So, spiritually, there is no age, you said.

Dr: If you have the right spirituality.

Susan: You don’t get old. Are you saying that someone can actually physically age, but not feel that they are spiritually aging?

Dr: I have seen people like that. You know, over the years, there is no difference in how happy they are, irrespective of very physical, complicated medical conditions, they are smiling, they are happy, they are contented, what else can it be, but spirit?

Susan: Now, here’s a thing… I’ve heard people say that if they get Alzheimer’s disease, just to shoot them. What do you say to those people?

Dr: I think they don’t know about life. They have drawn very quick conclusions about life, because if you ask the Alzheimer’s patient, this is what that person thinks, the patient with Alzheimer’s will say shoot that person, why me?

Susan: OK.

Dr. I don’t think it makes any sense.

Susan: Now what about when a person gets older and gets to be in pain, do some people want to die more than others when they get to be in pain.

Dr: It is extremely rare that people want to die. People want pain relief. We are becoming smarter and smarter but not perfect, not even close to perfection in managing pain, but we are really hopeful that once we find out ways to treat pain… For example, there are many patients who are in pain who accept hospice services, and we’ve got wonderful hospice services in this town, there are several of them, and really the hospice people are trained to take care of discomfort and pain. And, although we cannot cure the condition, people are still having some pain, we do focus on taking care of the pain. And those people, definitely once the pain is controlled, are satisfied that their problems are being looked into, they are much happier. We can’t say [neccesarily] that they are pain free, but they are far better than what they started with.

Susan: Now, some people who are younger, say the daughters and sons of people who are getting older, when they see their parents in pain, they sometimes say, ‘it’s time for them to go.’ Do you encourage that, or do you find that people who get their pain managed should not be encouraged to try to die. I don’t mean to try to kill themselves. I mean, is there a way that people just let go when they feel their family wants them to.

Dr: It’s not the family alone. Family has a great influence and great relevance in the decision making of a person, but it is eventually the person who is suffering or who is the main thing there, to decide, you know, given options. If that person thinks that just existing is too much struggle and he or she wants to give up, we simply have to support whatever life or whatever things we can do, but we can’t really decide for that person. Now, when that person cannot decide, there is a legal authority that is set up, so decision-making process then shifts to that person.

Susan: Yeah, in Illinois, we don’t have any solution to wanting to die or wanting to kill yourself, right, that’s not legal in Illinois.

Dr: Absolutely not.

Susan: You try to keep people alive for as long as possible.

Dr. And ethically and medically, we don’t say that we should kill people, not at all. We have to respect that person’s dignity and wishes and see whether we can have some way of accomodating and relieving their distress, that’s the main point.

Susan: Dr. Uday Deoskar is with me on the Broad View on WJBC and also his son Anand Deoskar who changed his life and I’m sure is hoping to prolong it now that you’ve got a better type of a lifestyle, Anand.

Anand: Absolutely

Susan: Now, what would you tell people is some of the really important things that you’ve learned since you’ve gone through your transportation.

Anand: I think the most important thing I’ve learned is that it’s really not as hard as I thought it would be. Actually, the most important thing was the commitment.

Susan: People want their Cheetoh’s though, Anand.

Anand: They want their Cheetoh’s because, they’ve become a slave to their Cheetoh’s, they think that that’s what they want. Because, they haven’t opened their mind to all the options that nature has to provide as far as the cornucopia of all kinds of infinite amounts of food. I mean, there is just so much food out there that is good for you. In fact, there is more food that is good for you than there is food that is bad for you. If you look at all the food is bad for you, it is actually made up of a much smaller list of ingredients. If you look at all the foods that are good for you there are a lot more ingredients in that list. I think people should challenge themselves a little bit.

Susan: OK, do we know what’s good for us?

Anand: I think we do.

Susan: OK, but what’s your main message.

Anand: My main message is that you have to really make a commitment that it’s important to you to be healthy. And, if you have that commitment, and if you have a strong commitment towards that, you will seek out the right answers and you will have success in your transformative experience or getting into health. You will have the success.

Susan: Now, do you have an idea of how much you have elongated your life since you changed your lifestyle from eating junk and going out and being overweight and smoking?

Anand: Well, obviously I’m not able to look into the future through my crystal ball and all that, because I don’t have one and I don’t know how to read it even if I did.

Susan: Well, you look pretty smart, but I guess you can’t.

Anand: But… I don’t know what the situation holds for me in the future but I could have increased my lifespan by anywhere from 10 to 50 years.

Susan: 10 to 50?  Do you agree with that, Dr. Deoskar, that he could have elongated or lengthened his life by as much as 50 years.

Dr: I think that the range he has described is quite correct. What are the odds that it is prolonged by 10 years is absolutely no question about it, that I am certain that that is the case. In terms of 50, it depends on so many other things. Nobody can really predict anybody’s longevity to a great extent unless they are very very close to dying. That’s the only time we doctors are accurate in telling how long somebody is going to live. But, the rest of the time, there are too many factors, variables that decide. But, is it possible that he might have extended for 50 years, yes.

Susan: Wow. Now, how about the phrase, “Use it or lose it.” What does that have to do with what you do in your practice?

Dr: It is such a useful term. It is so applicable. It is almost unbelievable. It is applicable to so many things. It is applicable to our brain, it is applicable to our muscles, heart, and anything, you know physical performance. It is even applicable to sex. Although we are not going to delve into this today, it is true that people who are active in their sexuality, they retain it longer.

Susan: And by longer, are you saying… See, those of us who are a little bit younger probably think that ‘use it or lose it’ might go to maybe 60, and maybe even people younger than me might think ‘Oh gosh, you’re talking about 40 year olds here’ but, what are you taking about?

Dr: I am not talking about physical sexual performance. I am talking about sexuality which has a much broader definition. As people age, they may not be interested in the same things that they were interested when they were 20 or 30 years of age. Sexuality can mean [something] quite different.  The question is, does the sexual relationship give you joy, energy, and excitement in life? Yes, it could, and it may be very different at different stages in your life, at different ages in your life, how much skills you develop, what kind of relationship you develop. Life itself is complex, humans are particularly complex, and humans in certain societies, advanced or developed societies, have even added complexities to them. I can’t really tell up to what age, but we know that people beyond the age of 85 and 90 do have sexual activities still.

Susan: Wow, that’s a pretty good age.

Dr: So, you can’t define sexuality.

Susan: So, do we want to live longer, or do we want to retard aging? Can we say either/or?

Dr: We want to enjoy live as long as we can. Whether that is through increasing our longevity, whether it is through increasing quality of life… But, you know, if you improve the healthful quality life, you are going to live a little bit longer and you are just going to postpone some of the unneccessary morbidities to the end of the life. There are some things you can’t predict… like, if somebody is going to get some kind of cancer, you can reduce the chances, but you can’t tell about accidents and things like that. But, overall, you will end up increasing both – the quality of life and the length.

Susan: Glad to welcome back to the Broad View for just a couple minutes more. Dr. Uday Deoskar and Anand Deoskar and they have changed their lives around. Anand is involved with the Fitness Learning Center and there are several programs you would like to talk about. What do you do there, Anand.

Anand: I’m the office coordinator for both the Fitness Learning Center and the Successful Aging Center. The Fitness Learning Center is basically pretty much by my mom who is an exercise physiologist, she has a Master’s Degree in that. She’s a nutritionist as well, and she teaches different exercise classes. She teaches yoga, tai chi, strength training, nutrition consultations.

Susan: All in the Fitness Learning Center with the goal of keeping people younger longer?

Anand: Yeah, just to help people’s health, to improve everybody’s health, to keep people in a good energy, because when people are active, when people are doing some of these great exercises, they feel better.

Susan: Now, what ages come to your Fitness Learning Center.

Anand: We have all ages, actually. We have from children to the elderly. We used to have some Children’s Yoga classes. We have Tai Chi classes. We have strength training classes. We have group classes, individual classes. It’s open to anybody.

Susan: And how can people get a hold of you if they would like to have a class.

Anand: They can call us up. Our phone number 309-662-8082 and they can catch us on the web at www.fitnesslearningcenter.com

Susan: Now you’ve changed your life quite a bit, and so what’s the message you want to make sure people hear today from you.

Anand: The message I want to say is to really try to take charge of your health as soon as you can. I mean, you don’t want to have to go under the knife. As far and distant as it may seem, it is very common nowadays for people to get heart disease and obesity and heart disease are increasing quite a bit. A large reason for that is because our health habits have changed and it is really important for us to really wake up and see what’s going on immediately. It’s such a traumatic experience having to have a surgery or having to have a heart attack.

Susan: And you can speak from personal experience on that – 6 bypass surgery.

Anand: Yeah, it was something completely avoidable. So, I really want other people to realize and feel empowered, that you know what ‘I don’t have these things right now.’ It’s just the worst feeling to find out that you have all these problems, that you were diagnosed… I was diagnosed with diabetes, I was diagnosed with heart disease. I was on the surgery table. It was a seven hour surgery. I had to recover for a week, I could barely move, I could barely walk, barely breathe.

Susan: Now, take us till today and talk about your cholesterol level, your blood pressure level, what are you currently doing?

Anand: It’s been a spectacular change because I’ve made a radical lifestyle change. My diet has been very strict and I’ve been able to have the best information about nutrition from my family. My father being a doctor and a geriatrician, and my mother being a nutritionist and exercise physiologist – they were able to give me a nutrition plan day by day. When I came out of surgery, I was living with them for a while and they were mapping out my entire meal-plan, day by day, meal by meal, ingredient by ingredient.

Susan: I was much impressed with how your cholesterol changed.

Anand: My cholesterol went down from like 263 total cholesterol to 103. So almost a 160 points I got down my total cholesterol which is really a massive amount.

Susan: It is a massive amount. I’ve never heard of anybody with cholesterol that low, Anand.

Anand: Well, first you’ve got to remember my cholesterol started really high too. And..

Susan: That’s my normal cholesterol. Sorry. Uh-Oh.

Anand: That’s just one factor in an overall picture. I don’t want anybody to feel that this one number indicates on thing. It’s a big picture. If you have a huge portrait, and one tiny portion of it is black, you can’t say the whole painting is black. You have to look at the whole portrait to get an idea of what it is. So, your total cholesterol is not indicative necessarily of your total health picture. That being said, all my levels went down. I’ve almost lost 50 pounds. My HDL, which is the good cholesterol, has gone up. My LDL which is the bad cholesterol has gone considerably down. And, my triglyceride level has gone down three or four hundred points.

Susan: You’re a poster-boy for your parent’s businesses. I think it’s wonderful that you’ve had such a success and I thank you so much for being on the Broad View, Anand

Anand: You’re most welcome. It’s been a pleasure.

Susan: And, Dr. Deoskar, what message would you like to leave with people out there, who are inevitably aging?

Dr: Well, I have got two very brief messages. One of them is that life can be very enjoyable almost up till the end. It’s a low-tech, high touch, low cost way to do it. The other thing is, aging well today in the context of economy and what is going to happen to our children’s economic status, it is almost patriotic to stay well and to maximize our wellness so that we don’t spend as much money. An individual can save thousands of dollars as soon as they start this process of aging well, and aging starts at 25, not at 60. A community can save millions of dollars of people live healthy, and a nation can save billions and billions of dollars. What I would suggest is that we do have through Heartland Community COllege, a Successful Aging Boot-camp, starting from April 15, after you’ve finished your taxes and all that. It is a boot-camp, and there is a lot of education with it, but there are specific plans and specific recommendations for what you must do during the course that will motivate you to know that it is not too hard and it’s enjoyable.

Susan: Dr. Uday Deoskar, it has been wonderful to have you with me on the Broad View and Anand Deoskar, your story is inspiring and it’s just amazing. Any final thoughts?

Anand: My final thought is… I must tell you that we are having a weight loss boot camp which we are starting, and I’ve lost almost 50 pounds in 4-5 months which is an extravagant amount, but we have a healthy, sensible way of losing weight with our nutrition and doctor experts designing the whole program. It’s very unique and we hope to take it nation-wide at some point. So, join in when we get started. It’s going to be at the lowest cost that you can possibly imagine for the future. It’s going to get bigger and bigger as we go on. So find out about it at www.fitnesslearningcenter.com. It starts on March 31st, it’s once a week, it’s 2 hour a week for 12 weeks and it will just be a lot easier to have coaches and people with you one-on-one, to help you get through such a difficult transition and we will make it easy and we’ll make it fun.

Susan: Thank you, so it’s the Deoskars and they have wonderful things going on for you if you want to live longer and live more successfully. Thank you very much for being on the Broad View on WJBC today.

Dr: Thanks for having us here, and I would really like to thank all my patients and their families who have taught me a lot about aging.

Susan: Thank you.