The Fight Against Aging

The quest to extend human life span is nothing new; scientists have long searched for ways to prevent aging and cure life-threatening illnesses such as cancer. Significant progress is being made in the field of gerontology and it is likely that in the future we will be able to slow the aging process down and live actively into old age. For example, in 1999, Italian researchers at the European Institute Of Oncology in Milan published findings regarding the existence of a genetic defect in mice that causes them to live a third longer than other mice. The mice ate a normal diet and had a normal body weight but they lacked a gene for a specific protein. The implications of this finding for human life spans is the focus of intensive research.

Taking Care Of Your Health: As you grow older it is important to be aware of the changes that take place in your body. You need to know how to prevent problems occurring and how to respond to them when they do. Taking responsibility for your own health and wellbeing gives you a powerful sense of control and self-confidence. However, this does not mean excluding healthcare professionals. For example, tell your doctor if you are taking herbal medicines. Other factors which may help include:

Positive Avoidance:
Many of the harmful aspects of life have been identified, which means that we can now make a positive effort to avoid the things that cause us harm. For example, stress, cigarette smoking, drinking too much alcohol and long-term exposure to the sun and pollution are five of the major contributors to the aging process. Even if we eat healthy food, exercise regularly and have plenty of sleep, these factors will still have an adverse effect on the body. Fortunately, it is comparatively easy to avoid cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and exposure to the sun. It is less easy to avoid pollution and stress; these are things that we need to tackle collectively, and this is now recognized and taken seriously by scientists, employers and governments. Also, even if we cannot avoid stress and pollution there are ways of mitigating their effects on the body. There is a wide range of complementary therapies that can help us to relax and there is some evidence that taking antioxidant supplements can mitigate the damaging effects of environmental pollution.

Complementary Therapies:
In the past, remedies for illness were passed down from one generation to the next in a strong tradition of herbal medicine. Although people may not have known how plant remedies worked, they remained tried and trusted ways of treating illnesses. For example, St John's wort was used as an antidepressant long before science taught us about serotonin, a brain chemical that affects mood. A report in the British Medical Journal stated that St John's wort has fewer side effects than imipramine, a widely prescribed antidepressant. Although conventional medicine remains the first option for many people during sickness, there is a move towards complementary therapies that treat the body as an interdepemdant whole rather than a collection of individual parts. It is now thought that many plant remedies are effective because they contain ingredients that work in concert with one another. In contrast, most Western drugs simply isolate the active ingredient in a plant. Herbalism is just one of the many types of complementary therapy available. Other types of recommended treatment include aromatherapy, massage, hypnotherapy, reflexology, dietary medicine and acupuncture. Complementary therapies are now recognized by many doctors and scientists as being valuable aids in assisting the body to fight illness and aging.

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