Natural Health

It seems like some folks have just plain won the longevity gene lottery. They get to live to be a hundred because they inherited DNA from their parents that keeps them spry, alert and mentally sound no matter what their age.

I know a very lively 90-year-old man and also a 96-year-old woman who never bothered a whit about how they eat, the quality of their sleep, meditation or any of the other stuff we sweat over.

Well, even if you suspect that your genetic inheritance is a little below par, you can take heart: Researchers believe they are discovering the places […]

1993 was the year Cynthia Kenyon’s lab made an historic breakthrough.

By partially disabling a gene called daf-2, her team able to double the lifespan of worms, the largest extension of life in any organism at the time. On top of that, the worms were completely healthy until the end of their lives.

The finding shocked the scientific community because it demonstrated what they thought impossible — that aging can be controlled. I remember the discovery well because, at least in my mind, it inaugurated the modern age of life extension.

Before that it was all talk about supplements, diet and exercise – […]

Here’s the hard truth: all the fancy serums, lotions and supplements in the world can’t stop skin aging. But the good news is that wise lifestyle tweaks can slow it down. And fortunately, they don’t require much money, and no needles are involved.

First, let’s get down to basics. There are two main perpetrators that accelerate the aging process of our skin: sun exposure, and advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which are byproducts of cooking or metabolizing food.

While we can’t block these two perpetrators completely, limiting sun exposure and being attentive to healthy eating can make a huge difference.

I won’t go into […]

It sounds like a far-fetched idea.

The idea that you can reverse or slow down your aging by applying a tiny amount of electric current to your ear – just about enough to cause a slight tickling sensation.

But that’s what researchers at the University of Leeds in England claim. And they say they have the results to show they’re on to something important.

The secret to their therapy, they explain, is that this tiny amount of electricity applied to the ear stimulates what’s called the vagus nerve, and thereby turns back the clock on the way an important part of the nervous […]

Since the late 1990s fullerenes have been shown to extend the lifespan of mice by anywhere from 5 to 14% even when the treatment was started halfway through their lives.

But it wasn’t until 2012 that the full impact of their potential struck home. Scientists from the University of Paris used them to almost double the lifespan of rats — a staggering and nearly unbelievable achievement.

The good news is that fullerenes can be purchased online. But what are they, and is it worthwhile taking them? Let’s find out. . .

Highly Versatile

In 1985, scientists at Rice University in Houston discovered previously unknown […]

Poor red meat – it just can’t get a break. Vegetarians, of course, blame it for every ill under the sun, not even counting cruelty to animals.

The actual scientific evidence goes back and forth: It increases cancer risk, but not much. It decreases your risk of diabetes and heart disease (if you eat it in place of carbs). It increases your risk of heart disease because of all the saturated fats.

So it goes. . .study after study, year after year, one contradicting another. It may not matter much because most Americans aren’t listening.

And something I never see mentioned is that […]

It’s not exactly breaking news that women live longer than men. According to the Centers for Disease Control,¹ the average life expectancy for men in the United States is 76.4, compared to 81.2 for women.

There’s plenty of other evidence, too.

Take, for instance, the ill-fated Donner Party in 1846. Of the 87 original members of the group, 47 of them survived; 70 percent were women. And in Iceland during the 19th century, records show that women lived longer than men every single year … regardless of feast or famine.

You can pretty much confirm the same thing by visiting any nursing home: […]

Stiff, aching joints, osteoporotic bones, Alzheimer’s disease, lesions that cause heart attacks and strokes: all these nasty “diseases of aging” have one thing in common — senescent cells.

Also called zombie cells, they stop normal cell division and lose their ability to function, but they don’t fully die off. Instead, they hang around wreaking havoc on surrounding tissues.

One of the most promising strategies in the field of health and longevity is to sweep these cells out of the body. The first human trial gives hope we can do exactly that. . .

Reduces Illness and Increases Lifespan

“I’ve never seen a field grow […]

In a just-published paper, biochemists at Oxford University, England, state that “immune activity and life expectancy seem to be intricately linked.”

But as we age, the immune system becomes less effective. The process even has its own name – immunosenescence.

The good news is that scientists believe they’ve found an answer to this decline — a development that could help us live a lot longer.

Thymic Involution

Weighing in at roughly an ounce, the thymus is a tiny gland located between the top of the lungs – but it packs a powerful immune punch.

It produces progenitor cells that mature into T-cells (meaning thymus-derived cells) […]

We’re all aware — or should be — that aerobic fitness lowers the risk of developing heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. It also decreases the risk of death and can potentially prolong life.

But there’s more to being in shape than heart rate and respiration. What about musculoskeletal fitness?

When it comes to muscular strength and flexibility and how they relate to life expectancy, there aren’t many studies to go on, so researchers from Brazil designed and conducted one.

The results were surprising. . .

The Sit-Rise Test

Dr. Claudio Gil Araújo, MD, PhD, specializes in exercise and sports medicine, but also works with heart […]