It was not too many years ago, if you went to your doctor for a checkup you could have a smoke in his office ask him for a light and perhaps even enjoy a smoke with your physician. This is a fact. Today however, medical professionals are just that, professionals whom many of us expect should be setting an example about living well.
Today there are many medical specialties in every field and in the aging and longevity sector, the clinicians participating heavily in research and biotechnology most certainly would have their own tips and secrets to live by, or so one would believe. The research scientists understand better than anyone else does just how far we have to go before we can enjoy the fruits of their laborious research. If there were a chance at improving one’s odds of living a healthier, longer life, these people would know.
Therefore, would it not be an interesting question to ask these professionals in the field of longevity research what they do to ensure having a shot at an extended life span. When asked about their own routines, each was quick to point out that there is still much to learn before they would ever recommend to others to do what they do. What follows are the things being done by some experts in longevity to lead a lengthy life.
• One forty nine year old research scientist studying centenarians at a major university medical center tries to donate his blood every couple of months. He is of the belief that having a modest iron deficiency could be a good thing. Iron is one cause of cells to release free radicals, those ominously misbehaving molecules that appear to be responsible for many horrendous illnesses including cancer.
These age related diseases are mainly gender neutral though women do seem to live longer than men do and seem to be more adept at staving off age linked disease. One theory for this is a women’s iron loss due to menstruation. This particular researcher will never menstruate but he believes by donating his blood, he not only is doing something good, but he hopes it will allow him to live until he is ninety five.
• Our next research scientist is fifty two years old and is in charge of a neuroscience division at a distinguished institution. He feels that restricting his calorie intake to about a couple thousand a day, he will increase his odds of a longer life. He purposely passes on having breakfast and lunch three days a week, [Monday, Wednesday and Friday]. In the evenings, each day, he snacks on fruits, vegetables, and a bowl of oatmeal – as well as noshing on his regular supper meal.
He eats like this because the research he and others have conducted shows that by limiting caloric intake, as well as the odd period of fasting, can kindle what are known as “adaptive stress response mechanisms” within the body. This physiological response is known to augment a person’s resistance to illness and injury. When asked if ever gets hungry, he claims it is probably good to be a little hungry.
He is five feet nine inches tall and weighs one hundred thirty pounds. He exercises regularly as a cross country runner and coach committing up to nine miles each day with the team he leads.
• This fifty five year old geneticist is a researcher at a renowned west coast university. She is on a low glycemic index diet that regulates and limits foods, which can be rapidly converted to sugar. This means she eats limited pasta, potatoes, bread and rice, plus no desserts – maybe a little dark chocolate now and then. She eats chicken Caesar salads, broccoli and peanut oil, asparagus, fish or a small quantity of red meat and some red wine.
Her purpose for eating such a diet is to ensure she keeps her blood sugar numbers from increasing which set off parallel insulin surges. She is a rehabilitated sweets addict who reorganized her diet program eight years ago when she uncovered that feeding sugar to roundworms shortened their life expectancy by twenty percent.
Sugar encourages insulin that had the effect of “turning off” the longevity gene that she knew from her prior work could be “switched on” enabling the round worms to increase their standard three week life span by twofold! Humans have an equivalent gene to this one found in round worms that is also switched off by insulin. Types of this gene have been associated to those who become centenarians after reaching one hundred years old.
• This forty year old scientist is a professor of pathology at an admired east coast ivy league medical school. His secret to longevity really is no secret at all. He has been ingesting resveratrol for the last seven years or so and has even persuaded close family members to do the same. He understands that resveratrol has the ability to stimulate a group of longevity related enzymes. He was previously on a restricted calorie diet but quit that when he realized it was only making his life seem longer.
Calorie restricted diets are certainly not for everyone and sooner or later a person must ask themselves if limiting some of life’s pleasures, such as eating an adequate diet and enjoying certain foods that might be harmful, is worth the chance of perhaps living longer. Resveratrol on the other hand is available in supplement form and some believe it works to mimic the caloric restriction physiological response.
• Our last longevity scientist is employed as a molecular biologist in charge of aging biology at a major research institute. At fifty six years old he has a very simple regimen for living a longer and healthier life, he likes to laugh – a lot. He is very pragmatic with his reasoning as he states his belief that it is really the best that can be done for us, at least for a while yet. He laughed a lot while discussing his very cynical and disbelieving opinion regarding the current state of longevity and aging research as a whole.
As one reads about what the experts in the field of longevity are doing to wage their personal battles against aging, it becomes apparent that there really is no secret formula for longevity as of yet. The best we can do is stay as fit and healthy as we possibly can. Doing this at least we can eventually say we did what we could to live as long as we could and in the healthiest way possible.
Fri, Jan 8, 2010
Anti Aging, Bioscience, Health And Aging, Longevity