All species experience aging

All species experience aging

Senior Health By Clark Gillespie
According to an African legend, God sent a scavenging bird called a Halawaka out into the world with instructions for our endless self-renewal. The instructions were simple – as age crept upon us, we simple shed our skin and emerged refreshed and new. On its journey, however, the unreliant and hungry bird was diverted by a large snake which was devouring a freshly-killed wildebeest. The end result of this tragic encounter was the snake's new-found and everlasting ability to shed its skin, one less bird and wildebeest, and the continuation of our relentless aging.
Ever since that shattering non-event, we humans have been searching for such a golden talisman – the way toward living forever, well, at least for a lot longer. And doing it in great health. This tantalizing quest has found its way into our fantasy world (Ponce De Leon's Fountain of Youth, Shangri-La, and even such wild ones as Dracula and Frankenstein, etc.). Physicians themselves have, over the years instituted the insertion of such purported life stretchers as goat glands, monkey glands, fetal lamb parts, and more. But as yet, no luck.
We are aware that each living species, plant and animal, has a life span – a time to live and a time to die. We also know the species variability of this span, and that it may be ended prematurely by hostile events. Thus a western fir may live 500 years if someone doesn't chop it down prematurely. A young salmon may swim downstream out to sea, mature a few years, and if not caught by one of us or by a bear as it fights its way back upstream, will there spawn and die. Our human life span, when not thwarted and foreshortened by disease, pestilence, famine, wars, personal sloth, and so on, is about 80 (fourscore) years.
All of these life spans are controlled by that living organism's genetic makeup. Our genes control all the events that go on within us as we live, grow, reproduce and age, and they can sometimes mutate and change on their own, or by our behavior, or by our environment, but finally though, will age us to death. Laboratory studies of animal aging have recently revealed considerable valuable evidence about the events that promote, as well as those that delay aging. Such works have markedly narrowed our search for the mechanisms to delay our aging and the degenerative diseases that accompany it. One very significant laboratory finding was the effect of diet upon animal aging. A small nutritious diet could double the life expectancy of these animals whilst a heavier yet similar diet did their compatriots in.
Research involving humans is beginning to reveal the same age-delaying benefits of modest, low-calorie and nutritious diets. Although there are many sources of such evidence, one that caught all of our eyes was the "biosphere" experiment. You may recall that little self-contained world which was built in the Arizona desert and, totally sealed away, could provide food, oxygen, waste management, everything necessary to sustain and promote life (even a few insects were allowed in!) without any outside support or intervention. In one experiment four men and four women researchers established a life within this biosphere, and remained there for two years. They were sustained, among other things, with a low 1,800 calorie diet that, although not fulfilling, was completely nutritious. None were overweight to begin with, but they all lost weight. Physical and biochemical studies on these eight "survivors" all revealed improved general health, and amid an abundance of excellent lab results (blood cholesterol, for instance, in the 120 mg range) was a marked reduction in fasting insulin levels. We'll see what that may mean.
There is much other more important work being done on aging. Caloric restriction has clearly gained momentum in this field particularly because of its striking life and health prolongation noted in animal research.
It is widely held by aging investigators that our bodies' production and expenditure of energy, either at rest (our basic metabolic rate – BMR) or during activity, also produces destructive oxidative particles called reactive oxygen species, sort of like ashes from a wood fire. Over years, these destructive particles accumulate and lead eventually and gradually to aging, its diseases, and to death. The free oxygen radicals that we hear about so much today are a part of this phenomenon.
In order to study further the effect of caloric restriction on humans, such a restrictive dietary program, code named CALERIE, was undertaken in this country and was recently reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. At the end of six months, the study volunteers were found to have bettered two important biomarkers of longevity – their body temperature (therefore their BMR) had decreased, and their fasting insulin levels were significantly reduced. Thus, in both cases, fewer ashes.
It would be almost impossible for us to summon the will to follow such a stringent, though nutritious, 1,800-calorie daily diet while surrounded by the constant temptation of such plenty. There is, however, mounting evidence, as noted here, that a low calorie diet is our ticket to a healthy long life – always provided, of course, that some other devilment doesn't waylay us. As with all else American, if more than two people are interested in anything, a club or society gets going. Learn more about this low calorie subject, therefore, from the Calorie Restriction Society at www.calorierestriction.org.
Incidentally, one of the eight biosphere participants was Professor Roy Walford, M.D., a pathologist, who did major work on aging and the delaying effects of a low calorie diet long before his stint in the dome. He planned to live to be 120 and he might have achieved that goal, had he not been struck down in his 70s by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – the so-called Lou Gehrig disease – his personal devilment. Our own best chance for a longer healthier life clearly lies in our diet, our habits, and our activity. Our hope for everlasting life lies only in our Bible.