Lucy McNeece

Retired Professor, Paris, France

Life transitions are stressful events, just ask former UConn professor Lucy McNeece. Lucy experienced the death of her husband, a fight against cancer, retirement from her career, giving up her longtime home and the animals there she had cared for, and moving to a new home in another country, all in a very short period of time. It is not surprising, then, that Lucy was concerned about how all these stresses could be making her health vulnerable. “I’ve always believed that there’s a connection between mind, body, and spirit, and what affects one negatively affects the others,” she says. While Lucy was always active and fit, and people usually thought she looked younger than she was, she was feeling vulnerable.

Lucy decided she needed support and health answers that, “my regular doctor, bless him, just wouldn’t think of.” She started looking for a holistic nutritionist, but when she saw an article by Dr. Desmond Ebanks of Alternity Healthcare in the Natural Nutmeg magazine, she realized there was a better option. Here was a person who could help her manage this transition into what Lucy calls her “new stage of life.”

Although Lucy admits feeling apprehensive about her first appointment, she quickly had her doubts dispelled. “I didn’t know if he would be up to the task,” she says, “but Dr. Ebanks was wonderful. He is responsive to the whole person.” As a lifelong academic, Lucy also strongly appreciates Dr. Ebanks’ research focus. He did a number of tests that Lucy’s regular doctor “never would have done,” and he was interested in discovery. “He engages with you and he is actively learning as he goes.”

Lucy found this impressive, but “the way he treats you as a person was really the most important thing.” Dr. Ebanks was not one of what she calls “smooth operators” who push one-size-fits-all fads for their clients: “He’s not just taking care of old people who want to be young again. He doesn’t manipulate or try to sell you package deals.”

In his initial research of Lucy’s health, Dr. Ebanks found that, despite her general commitment to health, Lucy’s body was aging faster than it should. She had the arteries of somebody five to ten years older than her real age, and the telomeres (cellular aging) of an 80 year old. Lucy was surprised. She had noticed that activities weren’t as easy for her and she fatigued easier and had a lower libido, but assumed this was “normal” for her age. Through better nutrition, modified exercise, aggressive nutritional supplementation, and cautious hormone balancing, Dr. Ebanks was able to make Lucy’s life adjustments much easier. All of her biomarkers of aging have improved dramatically “I have more energy, my libido is definitely stronger, and I generally feel much, much better,” she says.