I wrote on this a while back:
Free Radicals
Free radicals are a toxic byproduct of the body’s metabolism. When food is metabolized it burn oxygen (process called oxidation), which produces free radicals that combine and form toxic molecules that attack and burn everything they touch at a molecular level. They can destroy cell membranes, disrupt bodily processes, reprogram DNA, form mutant cells and more. Mainly free radical damage is the major cause of aging and of all degenerative conditions. In fact around 80 per cent of damage to the body is the result of free radicals. The more difficult the digestion is, like meat, the more oxidation is required to break it down. More oxidation, more free radicals. Free radicals are produced in response to many different everyday things, such as:
Food
All foods subjected to high heat especially animal products made from cows, pigs, lambs, fishes, chickens and other birds, eggs, dairy products, animal fats and proteins, metabolic waste products contained in animal tissues and organs. Refined foods like white sugar, white flour and hydrogenated oils. Preservatives, colorings and other food additives. Leftovers. Tap water.
Pollutions/Radiations
Environmental pollution from chemicals, asbestos, pesticide residues, and other man-made pollutants including the out-gassing of plastic and other synthetics, lack of clean fresh air, smoking, passive smoking, radiation from outside power linesm TV’s, computer monitors and worst of all microwave ovens.
Drugs
Alcohol, chemotherapy, medications, prescriptions and over the counter drugs.
Physical/Psychological
Sunburn and sun exposure through the weakend ozone layer, exposure to excess heat or cold, metabolism, heart disease, strokes, inflammation, stress, non-positive mental states and excessive physical and mental exertion.
Other
Synthetic materials such as polyester, acetate, satin and plastic.
Antioxidants
But nature has designed it so that the body produces substances called antioxidants, which convert free radicals into harmless molecules. Uric acid is one of the body’s most powerful natural antioxidants. The ability to produce this powerful antioxidant depends on factors such as age, gene inheritance, nutrition and stress. Progreria is a rare disease that affects children. Its effect is an inability to produce metabolic antioxidant enzymes. Therefore a person suffering from this horrible illness age at an extremly accelerated rate where a ten year old child might have same look and feel as a very old person. There are foods that create plenty of antioxidants such as barely, wheat, kamut, chlorella, oat, raw and uncooked foods from the plant kingdom, grape seed, grape skin, pine bark, rosemary and green tea.
Telomeres
At the tips of the DNA molecule contain a chain of repeating enzymes called telomeres (kinda like the blank leaders on film or the plastic covering on the ends of shoe laces). These telomeres provide a shock-absorbing zone where replication errors will not result in any of the vital DNA sequence being lost. When cells die, due to free radicals, they duplicate and life goes on. But each time a small portion of the DNA molecule is lost and not copied.
This loss is usually to the telomere and it has been noted that as humans grow older these telomeres shorten till eventually they are so short that the losses in replication affect the vital DNA molecule sequence thus preventing the cell from its ability to duplicate, which brings about the aging process.
Only in the germ cells, that are the progenitors of sperm and egg, are the telomeres restored by an enzyme called telomerase making them basically immortal. Also in cancer cells are the telomeres restored and this is the reason why tumours are so deadly, because they can duplicate ad infinitum.
Scientists, like Dr. Jerry Shay and Dr. Woodring Wright, have artificially lengthened the telomeres in cells and the result was a prolonged life the equivalent of an extra hundreds of years of human life. Now it has not yet been fully understood and is in no way a practice, yet, that could safely be applied to a living human being and cause him/her to become practically immortal. What is important to note, though, are the following five points:
1. Eating, and eating wrong, causes excessive amounts of free radicals.
2. Free radicals cause cells to die.
3. When cells die they duplicate.
4. Each time cells duplicate the telomeres in the DNA molecule are shortened.
5. When the telomeres become too short the DNA data is lost and aging is the result followed by death.
Calories
All living things require energy to survive, including Homo Sapiens, and this energy is derived from the food that is consumed. The standard measure of heat energy is the calorie. One calorie (kcal) is the amount necessary to heat one gram of water to one degree Ceclsius.
Humans need three types of foods, macronutrients, which are carbonhydrates, proteins and fats (minerals and vitamins are also essential). When the macronutrients are broken down in the digestive system they are transported to the bloodstream that delivers them to cells where they are used for energy. Proteins yield 4 kcal per gram and fats yield 9 kcal per gram.
Since the 1930’s scientists have known that calorie-restricted diets of animals can increase a life span 50 per cent longer than normal. This means that a diet low in calories, but high in nutrients, would extend the length of a persons life and improves his/hers health.
Comte de Saint Germain
There are many men that has been believed to have gained immortality. One that shall be mentioned here, due to his peculiar eating habits, is the Wonderman Comte de Saint Germain who was an adventurer, an alchemist and a diplomat.. His main position in history is in during the 18th century and there are many tales spun about and around him. One of great interest is that he is said to have possessed the Elixir of Life.
Although he never ate or drank in public he had a very strict diet of oatmeal, groats and the white meat of chicken. He had a recipe of a purge made of senna pods and on rare occasions would have some wine. He took great precautions to minimize the wear and tear of the body always trying to avoid getting a cold. When he slept he allegedly stopped the mechanism of the human clock. The physcial decay that occurs unknowingly within the body, like the free radicals spoken of earlier, was probably known by him in some form.
Conclusion
Now if eating is equal death than does this mean we should cease to eat? No, but we should definitly eat less. What then? Perhaphs the Elixir of Life holds some clue. If a potion could be made that held all that is vitally necessary for the functions of the body to keep working is regularly drunk, and if also the person puts himself in a meditating state where he projects and restores his energy to what suits him best then he would not need to consume the same amount of foods as the everyday man. By eating less the process of decay will take longer thus ensuring a greater life span of up to a minimum of double what is considered normal.
In northern China, amongst the mountains, lies a village (Sinhua) where the average life expectancy is 85 years and no case of serious disease have been registered. This is due to the fresh mountain air, the eating of foods with no chemical supplements and the drinking of pure spring water. Around the village over 200 kinds of medicinial plants grow, in ancient woods, which they use as food supplements.
