2020-03-30_People

many doctors have warned that claims of its effects

and safety are overstated.) “On my 60th birthday,

I thought, ‘Boy, I can’t lie about my age anymore,’ ”

Somers says. “So instead I said, ‘I’m going to make

my age the age everybody wants to be.’ There’s this

feeling when you get older and things change, like,

‘My hair isn’t as nice as it was,’ or ‘I can’t lose weight;

I’m always bloated.’ People said the drug companies

know best, but I thought, ‘What if I went another

way?’ You’re in control of the way you age.”

Somers, whose latest book is titled A New Way

to Age, is accustomed to contending with critics.

“People used to say, ‘Why would you listen to the

dumbest woman on television?’ ” she says. Today,

Somers maintains a high-fat, high-protein, vege-

table-heavy diet and takes up to 50 supplements

a day. She also credits an active sex life for her

youthfulness. “Sometimes we have sex twice a

day,” says Somers of Hamel, 83, whom she began

dating in 1969. (She has one son, Bruce, 54, from

a brief first marriage). “What we have together is

so romantic and sexy. We dance together, we have

a cocktail at night and we’re nude a lot. Alan tells

me every day how much he loves my body. We’re

having the best time. I really had no idea it was

going to be this good!”

Somers is banking on even more good years

to come. “I hope I’ll live until 110,” she says. “You

think you’ve come to the end of a chapter and a

new one opens up. I’m having the time of my life—

and I don’t want to miss a minute.” •

went radiation and had a lumpectomy) and was

forced to reexamine her life once more. “Cancer was

a veiled gift,” she says. “I thought I was healthy, but

I was eating processed foods, and I wasn’t sleeping.”

Somers overhauled her diet, seeking organic food at

a time when it wasn’t readily available, founding her

Suzanne Organics skin-care line in 2010 and launch-

ing an exploration into alternative medicine. She

discovered what she calls “life changers”: bioiden-

tical hormone replacements, which she credits for

her vitality. (Some forms of the treatment, which

seeks to replace the hormone levels a woman had

before menopause, aren’t approved by the FDA, and

ÒWe donÕt fight,Ó says

Somers of Hamel,

who works with her on

her brand. ÒWe value

each other. IÕve never

enjoyed anybody the

way I enjoy him.Ó

Her New Book

A New Way to Age,

on sale now, focuses

on natural remedies.

Five

Decades

of Love

55

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: TOM WARGACKI/WIREIMAGE; BRIAN ZAK/NEW YORK POST /MEGA; PETER ZAMBOUROS

March 30, 2020

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