Is there any woman who doesn't slow down when she wheels her shopping cart past a display of sticky buns?

If you need a good reason to keep walking, here it is: Eating less pastry and other foods high in saturated fat can help us maintain or increase our levels of youth hormones, according to Dr. Giampapa.

On the other hand, a steady diet of saturated fat switches off production of hGH, IGF 1, and DHEA. "We don't know why saturated fat has this effect, but it does," says Dr. Kogan.

We can encourage our bodies' production of youth hormones by getting no more than 10 percent of our daily calories from saturated fat, says Dr. Giampapa. In other words, if you consume 1,800 calories a day, no more than 180 of them (about 16 to 20 grams) should come from saturated fat.

As you trim the saturated fats from your diet, replace them with foods high in monounsaturated fats, such as nuts, avocados, and canola, olive, and peanut oils, says Dr. Giampapa.

Monounsaturated fats tend to reduce lowdensity lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and raise high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. That's not only good for our hearts, it's good for our youth hormone levels, too. The higher our HDL levels, the better equipped our bodies are to make DHEA, estrogen, and testosterone, says Dr. Giampapa. (That's because these particular hormones are actually made from cholesterol.)

Olive oil is perhaps the bestknown monounsaturated fat. And it can do more than lower LDL cholesterol. It contains several compounds, such as polyphenols, that are powerful antioxidants. These substances keep the LDL cholesterol in our bloodstream from being damaged by free radicals, making it less likely to stick to artery walls.