What follows is a framework for understanding a small portion of what goes on in the aging process. Why can some people do all the wrong things yet seem to live forever free of disability? We can influence the aging process by practicing the best known approaches to a healthy lifestyle on a daily basis.

In some ways life is like a game of chance, poker for instance. At birth everyone is dealt a hand. We can leave everything to chance. Or we can decide to try to maximize what we have been given with hard work, skill and cunning. Of course we will be at a great disadvantage if we have no knowledge about how the game is played.

Assume we are given a bucket full of health chips at the beginning of life. Some individuals are given more than others. Most healthy people have chips to squander. But if they are not careful they may find the chips they have been allocated don't last long enough.

The average person gets 200 million to 1,000 million (one billion) health chips, 10 percent get over one billion, and 10 percent get less than 200 million. The fewer chips the more susceptible we are to viruses, cancers, toxic substances, etc. Below 25 million chips one cannot survive.

As we progress through life we lose chips each day. There is no way to add chips but there are many ways to minimize the number of chips we lose.

Each day we leak 1,000 chips out of the bucket
simply as part of the process of living (accumulation
of free radicals etc.). This leak is an obligation that
cannot be reduced or repaired.