How To Live To A Hundred: Ask A Sardinian

In the Mediterranean Sea, there is an island paradise rumored to have a different kind of "air" that grants longevity to the people who live there -- Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy, where scientists have been trying for years to discover the secrets of why these men and women live such long lives.

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With a population of 1.6 million, Sardinia has been confirmed as having the world's highest documented percentage of people who have passed the one-century-old threshold, according to the Guardian.

While scientists still can't determine whether the secret behind Sardinians' long lives is diet, lifestyle, genetics or some combination thereof, the island's Melis family was recognized by Guinness World Records on Tuesday for having the world's oldest combined age in a family.
Nine elderly siblings of the family are now (in aggregate) 818 years old, with the oldest, Consolata, reaching 105 on Wednesday and the youngest sibling, Mafalda -- affectionately nicknamed by her older brothers and sisters as The Little One -- at the relatively spry age of 78.

The siblings live in a close-knit family, which comprises 150 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

"Genes and lifestyle are paramount, but luck plays a big part -- avoiding accidents and falls, and so on -- so to have such a large number of living siblings with an average age of more than 90 years is incredibly rare," said Guinness World Records' editor-in-chief, Craig Glenday.

To Alfonso Melis, one of the celebrated siblings, however, the secret to long life is not exactly that complicated. When asked the question, he simply said: "We eat genuine food, meaning lots of minestrone, and little meat, and we are always working."

At the age of 89, he can be found either working at a café he runs or working in his own garden, growing beans, aubergines, peppers and potatoes.

His older sister, Claudia, who still attends church every morning at the age of 99, gave an almost identical response: "You just keep working, and you eat minestrone, beans and potatoes."
Living in a village of Perdasdefogu in a mountainous region of Sardinia, the Melis family's health came as pleasant news to the Sardinian people, though it is not at all a surprise.

At least 371 of Sardinia's current population have reached  the 100-year mark -- the corresponding ratio of centenarians to total population is astonishingly 20 times greater than that found in the United States.

The secret to Sardinians' long life is the subject of study of a project called AKeA -- an acronym for "A kent' annos," a traditional toast in the Sardinian culture that means "may you live to be 100 years."
The leading researcher, Luca Deiana from the University of Sassari in northwest Sardinia, found that genetics play a key role, observing that it is generally in the central-eastern mountainous region that longevity is most common.

The ruggedness of the geography has repelled invaders for centuries, and there has been little intermarriage with outsiders since then, thereby preserving some of the beneficial genetic traits.

For example, Deiana, along with his team of 25 Italian doctors and biologists, identified a gene in the Y chromosome that can greatly reduce heart attacks and strokes in men.
This gene, passed down from fathers to sons, can explain the ratio of male-female centenarians in the region, which is about 1-1, while the ratio is generally 1-4 globally.

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Diet is also considered to be crucial -- as the Sardinian diet is rich in healthy nutrients from fresh locally grown vegetables, prepared simply with olive oil and served with lemon, garlic and other spices.

Sardinians' diet is particularly rich in proteins derived from milk and cheese, while low on sugary food and meat. Many of them eat meat only once or twice a week. The dishes are usually a small piece of lamb, lean pork, oily fish or shellfish, accompanied by a lot of vegetables.

A glass of wine is considered indispensable in Sardinian culture, along with a chunk of sheep's cheese or goat's ricotta.

The amiable climate of the Mediterranean also helps keep these old men and women in a good mood. A villager from the town of Orroli believes that it is truly something "in the air" that keeps the people alive for so long, as reported by Time magazine.

Last but not least, beyond the genetics, food, weather and lifestyle, Deiana believes that the Sardinian culture is also a factor in  the people's longevity.

In Sardinia, elders are held in high regard and included in family life, and most of them are encouraged by the villagers to be actively involved in the local society.

Mario Antonio Attene, the mayor of Silanus, a town of 2,400 with around 10 centenarians, made a statement in an online interview saying that the lives of Sardinian old men and women "have great meaning, because they do not get locked in a retirement home. They are happy to be alive and convinced it's worth it even though they may be old and ill, because they have the affection of children, loved ones and grandchildren."

However, not even Sardinia is immune to the worrying trends of the modern world, including the omnipresent force of globalization.

As long ago as 2005, National Geographic magazine reported that the presence of motor vehicles on the island has greatly reduced the healthy exercise that walking provides. Obesity, which was unknown in Sardinia prior to 1940, now affects about one-tenth of the population.

"Children want potato chips and pizzas. That's what they see on TV," said a local man named Tonino. "Bread and pecorino [a hard Italian cheese] are old-fashioned."

Hi Everyone...

I didn't update this blog for months already. Been busy. However, I will try to have at least one post every two days at least. By doing this, I will able to learn more about immortality myself and if I can't be immortal, at least I got to know many ways on how to go about in life extension.

Low-cal diet may be today's fountain of youth

From a scientific standpoint, it seems that the key to living longer is eating less. Restricting calorie intake not only promotes weight loss, but recent experiments have shown that it also activates intracellular genes, which trigger longevity. When I heard about an organization in the United States putting this restrictive practice to use, I was curious. At the end of June, I made a trip to North Carolina to meet group member Bob Cavanaugh to learn more.

"Usually I don't eat lunch. Today is an exception because of the interview," said the 177-centimeter tall, 70-kilogram Cavanaugh, who operates a landscaping business in a town about two hours from the state capital, Raleigh.

Cavanaugh, 64, is also the managing director of the CR (Calorie Restriction) Society International. For the past 12 years, he has been limiting his caloric intake to about 70 percent of what the average, active adult male requires for a day.

Cavanaugh joined the society at the end of 2000 because of poor health. His cholesterol was high and when a doctor suggested he reconsider what he was eating, he got hold of a book about the relationship between longevity and calorie restriction.

Up until then he had been eating more than three meals a day, usually consuming a large steak at dinner and raiding the refrigerator throughout the night.

Now, breakfast consists of a bowl of oatmeal topped with sunflower seeds or something similar. He has nothing for lunch. Dinner is a salad, with legumes and chicken or salmon or tuna as a source of protein. He also drinks a single glass of red wine. As a general rule, bread and sugar are avoided.
Giving due consideration to nutritional balance, Cavanaugh aims for a daily intake of about 1,800 calories, the average among the society's members. In Japan, the rough intake target for adult males is between 2,000 and 2,400 calories. It is thought Americans consume about 30 percent more calories on average than the Japanese, so for Cavanaugh, whose work requires physical labor, his caloric intake is quite low. Among the society's members are some who only eat the equivalent of 1,000 calories a day.

Five months after embarking on his new dietary lifestyle, Cavanaugh's health improved, including lower cholesterol, and he was able to stop taking medications.

"When I was a child I had limitless energy. I feel like I've returned to that state. Life still moves forward like a conveyor belt, but I feel like its speed has slowed," he said.

In order to prevent osteoporosis, which has been indicated as a risk for those who limit caloric intake, Cavanaugh makes sure to get plenty of sunlight, walking five kilometers four or five times a week.
"Restricting caloric intake has proven to benefit longevity in experiments on animals, so I believe in it," he said.

The CR Society International, which was founded in the United States in 1994, currently comprises about 5,000 members worldwide, according to Cavanaugh.

In 1935, results from experiments with lab rats were already showing that limiting calories was extending their lives. These were followed with successful experiments on other living organisms such as flies and eelworms. And though restricted calories were shown to delay the aging process in rhesus monkeys, the mechanism enabling this outcome remained unknown.

Shedding light at the genetic level on this hitherto evasive mechanism has been a group of researchers led by Leonard Guarente, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Shin-ichiro Imai, associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2000, the group reported that when the gene sirtuin was activated in experiments involving yeast, the fungi's life span was extended, and that the same gene could be activated in mice. Their findings indicated that certain genes influenced longevity. Since then the group has also reported that limiting caloric intake activates the sirtuin gene. In short, restricting caloric intake activates the sirtuin gene, which in turn increases longevity.

"Activating sirtuin is like Clark Kent turning into Superman," Guarente explained.
Practical research along this line is moving forward. Guarente is developing a new drug to combat diabetes that activates sirtuin without the need to limit calories. Meanwhile, Imai is working to develop a new drug based on the hypothesis that life can be extended by activating sirtuin in brain cells. More than being cures for different diseases, the drugs aim to prevent internal organs from aging.

"By clarifying the aging and longevity mechanism, I want to make growing old in a healthy state possible. I believe this is necessary for Japan, where the population is rapidly aging," Imai said.

Protein that boosts longevity may protect against diabetes

Sirtuins help fight off disorders linked to obesity, new MIT study shows.

Anne Trafton, MIT News Office
A protein that slows aging in mice and other animals also protects against the ravages of a high-fat diet, including diabetes, according to a new MIT study.

MIT biology professor Leonard Guarente ’74 discovered SIRT1’s longevity-boosting properties more than a decade ago and has since explored its role in many different body tissues. In his latest study, appearing in the Aug. 8 print edition of the journal Cell Metabolism, he looked at what happens when the SIRT1 protein is missing from adipose cells, which make up body fat.

When put on a high-fat diet, mice lacking the protein started to develop metabolic disorders, such as diabetes, much sooner than normal mice given a high-fat diet.

“We see them as being poised for metabolic dysfunction,” says Guarente, the Novartis Professor of Biology at MIT. “You’ve removed one of the safeguards against metabolic decline, so if you now give them the trigger of a high-fat diet, they’re much more sensitive than the normal mouse.”

The finding raises the possibility that drugs that enhance SIRT1 activity may help protect against obesity-linked diseases.

Guarente first discovered the effects of SIRT1 and other sirtuin proteins while studying yeast in the 1990s. Since then, these proteins have been shown to coordinate a variety of hormonal networks, regulatory proteins and other genes, helping to keep cells alive and healthy.

In recent years, Guarente and his colleagues have deleted the gene from organs such as brain and liver to pinpoint its effects more precisely. Their previous work has revealed that in the brain, SIRT1 protects against the neurodegeneration seen in Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

SIRT1 is a protein that removes acetyl groups from other proteins, modifying their activity. The possible targets of this deacetylation are numerous, which is likely what gives SIRT1 its broad range of protective powers, Guarente says.

In the Cell Metabolism study, the researchers analyzed the hundreds of genes that were turned on in mice lacking SIRT1 but fed a normal diet, and found that they were almost identical to those turned on in normal mice fed a high-fat diet.

This suggests that in normal mice, development of metabolic disorders is a two-step process. “The first step is inactivation of SIRT1 by the high-fat diet, and the second step is all the bad things that follow that,” Guarente says.

The researchers investigated how this occurs and found that in normal mice given a high-fat diet, the SIRT1 protein is cleaved by an enzyme called caspase-1, which is induced by inflammation. It’s already known that high-fat diets can provoke inflammation, though it’s unclear exactly how that happens, Guarente says. “What our study says is that once you induce the inflammatory response, the consequence in the fat cells is that SIRT1 will be cleaved,” he says.

That finding “provides a nice molecular mechanism to understand how inflammatory signals in adipose tissue could lead to rapid derangement of metabolic tissue,” says Anthony Suave, an associate professor of pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medical College, who was not part of the research team.

Drugs that target that inflammatory process, as well as drugs that enhance sirtuin activity, might have some beneficial therapeutic effect against obesity-related disorders, Suave says.

The researchers also found that as normal mice aged, they were more susceptible to the effects of a high-fat diet than younger mice, suggesting that they lose the protective effects of SIRT1 as they age. Aging is known to increase inflammation, so Guarente is now studying whether that age-related inflammation also provokes SIRT1 loss.

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Glenn Medical Foundation and the American Heart Association.

Would You Be Willing to Skip Eating If It Meant Living Longer?

We all want to live longer, but one way to do it may not sit well with you — it involves eating less. A lot less. In fact, on some days, you’ll eat almost nothing at all.


Calorie restriction has been shown to prolong the lives of animals by as much as 40 percent, and could even protect against common age-related diseases like cancer and diabetes.
New research on so-called alternate day fasting (ADF) indicates there are cardiovascular and weight-loss benefits to eating fewer than 600 calories every other day. In fact, if you can stand doing it, you almost get free rein to eat whatever you want on your non-restricted days.

But if that’s too much for you, a modified version in which you only “fast” two days a week might work, too. A BBC reporter who tried it for five weeks lost almost 14 pounds and saw his glucose and cholesterol numbers improve — and he said sticking to the plan was remarkably easy.

All that aside, though, until extensive research is done with humans, experts suggest fasting only in a clinical setting because severe caloric restriction could be dangerous for some individuals.

Burnt Toast: Who Wants to Live Forever?

Published on Tuesday, 07 August 2012 07:00

Written by Berndt Hannweg

What does it really mean to be immortal?

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work,” said acclaimed comedic director Woody Allen, “I want to achieve it through not dying.”

Immortality means many different things to many different people, but in our mundane world, short on genies and wish-granting fairies as it is, immortality is in fact, our legacy. It is the drive to leave behind something which will guarantee your name a place in the history books forever.

Three news stories the past fortnight showcased what it really means to be immortal.

The first was that of a farmer from Bloemhof by the name of At van der Merwe, who was murdered on his farm in April. With no surviving relatives (having survived his two sisters), At donated his estate to the Abraham Kriel Children’s Home.

So the fortunate occupants of the Home woke up one day to the princely sum of R30 million, which will be put into a trust until such a time that they can determine what to do with their windfall.

It’s almost certain that by the time the next issue of VARSITY comes out, we will all have forgotten At’s name, but I suspect that the beneficiaries of his estate, and all the people the Home helps in the coming years probably never will. Doubtless, some will pay it forward.

Our second story is somewhat less recent than a July bequest. But only by about 370 million years.

Last Wednesday, scientists published a study about a fossilised insect hailing from Belgium. With the hip and catchy name Strudiella devonica, the insect is one of the earliest complete insect fossils ever found, and will go a long way to plugging the gaps in our knowledge regarding the evolutionary chain.

The public will forget this fellow’s name even quicker than that of generous At (can YOU recall what the fossil’s name was?), but its legacy will probably outlast us all. Somewhere, in a vast tome where they record all scientific knowledge, Ol’ Strudy will exist as a small link between earlier life and the current mosquito.

The third and final story was that of the Apollo Moon Missions. Orbital fly-overs have revealed that five of the six flags placed on the moon by the Americans are still standing, surviving as they have solar radiation and the vagaries of life on our gray companion. The exception is the flag from Apollo 11, which was knocked over when Buzz and Neil left the moon back in ’69.

These flags have not only exceeded expectations, they have outlasted the various space programs that placed them there. As Futurama so jokingly predicted, once man gets to the moon, they will undoubtedly be enshrined for future generations to enjoy.

Until science finds a chemical way to get our cells to stop self-destructing after 70 years, mankind’s only real shot at immortality is to build a legacy that will stand the test of time.

Studies Suggest Intermittent Fasting Might Increase Longevity

     

I’d always thought of fasting as something unpleasant, with no obvious long term benefits. So when I was asked to make a documentary that would involve me going without food, I was not keen as I was sure I would not enjoy it. But the Horizon editor assured me there was great new science and that I might see some dramatic improvements to my body. So, of course, I said, “yes”.

I am not strong-willed enough to diet over the long term, but I am extremely interested in the reasons why eating less might lead to increased life span, particularly as scientists think it may be possible to get the benefits without the pain.

How you age is powerfully shaped by your genes. But there’s not much you can do about that.

Calorie restriction, eating well but not much, is one of the few things that has been shown to extend life expectancy, at least in animals. We’ve known since the 1930s that mice put on a low-calorie, nutrient-rich diet live far longer. There is mounting evidence that the same is true in monkeys.
The world record for extending life expectancy in a mammal is held by a new type of mouse which can expect to live an extra 40%, equivalent to a human living to 120 or even longer.

It has been genetically engineered so its body produces very low levels of a growth hormone called IGF-1, high levels of which seem to lead to accelerated aging and age-related diseases, while low levels are protective.

A similar, but natural, genetic mutation has been found in humans with Laron syndrome, a rare condition that affects fewer than 350 people worldwide. The very low levels of IGF-1 their bodies produce means they are short, but this also seems to protect them against cancer and diabetes, two common age-related diseases.

The IGF-1 hormone (insulin-like growth factor) is one of the drivers which keep our bodies in go-go mode, with cells driven to reproduce. This is fine when you are growing, but not so good later in life.
But it turns out IGF-1 levels can be lowered by fasting. The reason seems to be that when our bodies no longer have access to food they switch from “growth mode” to “repair mode”.

As levels of the IGF-1 hormone drop, a number of repair genes appear to get switched on according to ongoing research by Professor Valter Longo of the University of Southern California.

Intermittent fasting

One area of current research into diet is Alternate Day fasting (ADF), involving eating what you want one day, then a very restricted diet (fewer than 600 calories) the next, and most surprisingly, it does not seem to matter that much what you eat on non-fast days.

Dr. Krista Varady of the University of Illinois at Chicago carried out an eight-week trial comparing two groups of overweight patients on ADF.

“If you were sticking to your fast days, then in terms of cardiovascular disease risk, it didn’t seem to matter if you were eating a high-fat or low-fat diet on your feed (non-fast) days,” she said.

Want to live longer? Just eat less – Lifestyle News

Publication Date 1 August 2012

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Forget sweating it out in the gym, fad diets or so-called miracle pills – if you want to live longer simply eat less, a leading science journalist has claimed. Dr Michael Mosley, a presenter on BBC science show ‘Horizon’, said that ongoing research suggested that a high metabolic rate is
a risk factor for earlier mortality.

And he revealed that communities in Japan and the U.S. that follow strict, low-calorie diets appear to live longer than the global average.

Dr Mosley said of calorie restriction diets, which are often as low as 600 calories a day that over a period of time the body adapts to it and slows down the metabolism rate, which eventually helps in prolonging our life.

“The bottom line is that it is the only thing that’s ever really been shown to prolong life,” the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.

“Ultimately, ageing is a product of a high metabolic rate, which in turn increases the number of free radicals we consume.
“If you stress the body out by restricting calories or fasting, this seems to cause it to adapt and slow the metabolism down. It’s a version of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”,” he said.

The 55-year-old said he did not believe it was necessary to eat three meals a day because ‘what we think of as hunger is mainly habit’.

In a new Horizon programme, he suggested that intermittent fasting could offer the same benefits as calorie restriction by reducing the growth of hormone IGF-1.

While the hormone maintains and repairs tissue, high levels have proven to contribute towards cancer and ageing.

His comments, made to the Radio Times, come after the Institute of Health Ageing at University College London suggested that eating 40 percent less could help extend a person’s life by 20 years.

“If you reduce the diet of a rat by 40 per cent it will live for 20 per cent longer. So we would be talking 20 years of human life,” a researcher said.
“This has shown on all sorts of organisms, even Labradors,” the researcher added. (ANI)

Do You Want to Be Immortal? Really?

According to Dr. Igor Vishev (b. 1933), a distinguished Russian scientist and philosopher, it is likely that there are people alive today who will never die. Just stop for a moment and think about that. Alive today. Never die.

Vishev is convinced that medical technology is advancing so rapidly that sometime later in this century, Homo sapiens will become Homo immortalis. He believes that our current lifespan of up to 90 or, in extreme instances, slightly over 100 years, is not cast in stone or fixed in nature but an evolutionary stage out of which we are now emerging. Genetic engineering, replacement of natural organs with artificial instruments, nanotechnology, and other developing technologies could now extend our lives well beyond today's assumed limits. He proposes that a 200-year-old person is a present possibility, and a person who could live at least as long as a 2,000-year-old redwood tree is certainly imaginable. Such longevity will be self-propelling. New discoveries during the 200-year (or 2,000-year) lifespan would make what Vishev calls "practical immortality" a fairly safe bet. By "practical" he means "realizable" but not absolute. People could still die, accidentally or otherwise, but eventually techniques of "practical resurrection," toward which today's cloning is a primitive first step, would be able to restore life to those who somehow lose it. Vishev's philosophy, which he calls "practical immortology," is an attempt to shift our entire culture and worldview from one based on the certainty of human mortality to one based on the prospect of human immortality. This shift requires radical new directions not only in science and technology but in economics, politics, morality, ecology, art -- everything. Not easy, of course, but he thinks it's possible.

Vishev's line of thought is a 21st-century variation of Russian cosmism, a philosophical tendency that started with the eccentric 19th-century librarian and thinker Nikolai Fedorov (1829-1903) and continued through the 20th century in the works of religious thinkers such as Nikolai Berdyaev, Pavel Florensky, and Sergei Bulgakov and speculative scientists such as the rocket pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the definer of the "noosphere" Vladimir Vernadsky, and the heliobiologist Alexander Chizhevsky. Intellectually diverse and not considering themselves members of any philosophical "school," the Russian cosmists shared a sense that man is a creature not of Earth alone, that in both a spiritual and scientific sense we should regard ourselves as simultaneously Earth citizens and "heaven dwellers." We are, in the cosmist view, active agents of our own evolution, capable of rationally directing -- or misdirecting -- our human and planetary future. Unfortunately, we currently choose to ignore our managerial abilities -- our naturally or divinely assigned task to regulate ourselves and our environment -- and are allowing ourselves to devolve into subhuman beings in a man-made hell. But, generally optimistic, the cosmists emphasize the spiritual and scientific advances that can set us and our world on the right path. Some of their proposals include exploration and colonization of the universe beyond Earth; active recognition of universal kinship; radical psychological, social, and cultural reorientation ("mind upgrade," as the recent cosmist writer Danila Medvedev put it); and, the proposal least attractive to some of us, reengineering our bodies to eventually allow an autotrophic diet in which we feed on sunlight and air instead of on plants and animals.

But from Fedorov on, a main cosmist idea has been to overcome death. For Fedorov individual immortality was not sufficient; our ultimate task was to bring back to life all humans who had ever lived. A devout if eccentric Christian, Fedorov viewed the resurrection as a human task, the Christ-like duty of the sons and daughters of humanity to restore life to those from whom it had been taken. Children would use future scientific technology to resurrect their parents, who in turn would resurrect theirs, all the way back to Adam and Eve.

As fantastic as Fedorov's idea seemed to his contemporaries, and as parts of it still seem to us, thinkers today, like Igor Vishev, have devoted very serious attention to the prospects and consequences of practical immortality. And Vishev knows something about overcoming apparent difficulties. Totally blind since age 14, due to a chemical accident, he has enjoyed a full academic career, addresses international conferences, works on a computer in several languages, plays chess, skis, and skates with his grandchildren.

The important question now may not be whether remaking ourselves and our universe to eliminate limits to present life is possible, but whether it is desirable. For centuries poets have intuited profound value in the mystery of death. As Shakespeare tells us in Sonnet 73, death gives life meaning, and love grows more strong for that "which thou must leave ere long." Or, as Wallace Stevens wrote in "Sunday Morning," "Death is the mother of beauty." Could many of our best intangibles be lost in the transition from human to "transhuman"?

And maybe we don't even need to fight death. Many traditions of religious and spiritual thought tell us that we are already immortal in part or in potential, that what we call death is simply a transition from one state of existence to another, worm to butterfly. And Socrates argued that because we don't know what death is, to fear it is hubris, pretending to know, and know well enough to fear, what we do not know. As he prepared to drink the hemlock, he famously told his friends that now was the time of parting, they to live and he to die, and which was better only the gods knew.

The question of what death is and how or whether we should attempt to eliminate it won't be settled here, or anywhere, anytime soon. But if Igor Vishev is right, someone alive today -- certainly not the one writing these words, but maybe someone reading them -- may be around long enough to know the answer.

10 Tips to Look Younger, Feel Better and Live Longer Holistic Health

1. Manage Your Stress

Living in and around the beltway will raise your blood pressure. Chronic stress will also lead to elevated cortisol levels causing excess belly fat, anxiety, fatigue, forgetfulness, depression, insomnia and digestive issues, just to name a few health problems. Both Tai Chi and Yoga are exceptional ways to combat stress, and studies show they can lead to improvements in sleep, digestion, excess weight and sense of well-being. Meditation is also a wonderful way to quiet your mind in a fast-paced world of mayhem. My standard response to a patient asking whether they should practice Tai Qi, Yoga or Meditation is an emphatic "YES!" Any one of the three is exceptional for you - it's just trying to find the particular practice that is the most fun and the one from which you receive the greatest benefit.


2. Walk

Walking is an underrated pastime. It encourages blood circulation, burns calories, and uplifts your spirit. I walk a mile when I get home from work every day. Walking helps me clear my head, generate a bit of an appetite for dinner, and gain energy to tackle my evening projects. When you walk, focus on your breathing. This will promote positive life energy (qi) to flow through your body.


3. Breathe

Speaking of breathing, Americans are typically shallow breathers, yet every cell in your body is demanding oxygen (among other things) to survive. People who breathe deeply live longer, enjoy better relationships, and have lower cortisol levels compared to those who do not.
The oxygen supply to your brain slows down when you sit at a desk. Jumping up and doing laps around the office will be good, but your co-workers may look at you funny. So instead, practice deep breathing to provide additional oxygen to your brain when you feel fatigued at work. If you have Outlook or another calendar program on your computer, I recommend that you schedule two "appointments" per day with the key words "breathe" and "posture." Do not schedule them for the same times each day.

When the reminder pops up on the screen, take a moment to evaluate your posture: are your shoulders held high? Is there tension in your neck, forearms or back? If you sense tension, take a deep breath and let it out slowly, while visualizing all the stress held in your body draining out the bottoms of your feet. I promise you will have more energy at the end of the day.


4. Limit or eliminate soda consumption.

The sugar found in one cola can shut down the production of white blood cells in your body in half for the next 24 hours. What do white blood cells do? They are the center of your immune system. They protect you from micro-organisms such as bacteria. Have you noticed that your friends that drink sodas often have the greatest incidence of bronchitis, sinusitis, gastritis and fatigue? I wonder if there's a connection?

Your response to that information may be "well I drink DIET coke....no sugar!" If you google "Aspartame" and "Side Effects," you'll see an incredible list of symptoms associated with ingesting that substance. If you've been feeling anxious, have been having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, I invite you to stop drinking soda for 4 weeks and see how you feel. EVERY one of my patients who took me up on that challenge felt better afterwards.


5. Drink water

Every cell in your body demands three things: food (in the form of glucose), water and oxygen. Most Americans deprive their cells of two out of three. Since soda is a diuretic (dehydrates you through urination), it makes matters worse for your health.

Your brain is 85% water, your muscles are 75% water, cartilage 85% (but decreases to 70% as we age). Proper hydration provides you with more energy, protects your joints from arthritis, and gives your skin a healthy glow as well as reducing wrinkles. Chronic constipation is a direct result of dehydration. Instead of stool softeners, try drinking the equivalent of half your weight in ounces of water per day. Also, people suffering from constipation tend to be deficient in vitamin D and/or Magnesium.


6. Forgive someone - anyone!

We all have someone in our lives who may have wronged us. Maybe someone who said something malicious, or abused your trust. Picture that every time this happens in your life, you pick up a rock and put it in your backpack. Over the years this can add up, and drag you down. Researchers have found that if you can let go of your hard feelings toward these people, the very act of letting go will reduce your blood pressure, improve your digestion, eliminate your headaches, and generally make you feel better emotionally and physically.

One approach they recommend is to write a short note saying "I forgive you for...." whatever they did to you, to whatever detail you wish. Put it in an envelope, and burn it, watching it turn to ashes, and letting that feeling you've been holding onto for years go with the smoke.


7. Identify something harmless that brings joy into your life... And DO IT...

I see so many people who are working 12 hour plus days and aren't enjoying much of anything these days. Mothers–who always put their family's needs first–should find ways to recharge their batteries. It may be something as simple as reading a favorite magazine, getting a massage, or lighting some candles and taking a bubble bath. Whatever activity it is, you should seek out and do something like it every day. When you do something positive for yourself, you will have more energy to do something good for others.


8. Stop smoking

Since a number of my patients smoke and ask me what they can do to feel better more often, I suggest that they quit smoking. Everyone knows about the cardiovascular risks of smoking. It also creates more wrinkles (look at the original Marlboro Man), reduces blood flow to the brain (who wants dementia?), puts you at higher risk for any type of surgery, and seriously reduces libido (you've watched too many movies where they smoke after a vigorous activity - that's Hollywood).
Still, the risk of disease and shortened lifespan is the most important issue. If you have children or grandchildren, wouldn't you like to see them graduate from high school or college? My grandfather smoked and he died when I was a junior. He never made it to my graduation. My grandmother, who didn't smoke, is still around and enjoying life at 94 years old.


9. Improve the quality and quantity of your sleep.

Do you sleep well? Sleep is the glue that holds us together. Lack of sleep is a huge factor in a number of serious chronic illnesses. Many folks have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. If you find yourself not being able to fall asleep, reduce stimulants such as coffee or chocolate. If you fall asleep fine, but find yourself waking up at a particular time, it may be hypoglycemia where your blood sugar drops. Try eating some protein such as some raw nuts or some almond butter before you go to sleep.
If you’re perimenopausal and having trouble with sleep, consider bio-identical hormones. They can do wonders for your sleep as well as your hot flashes and mood swings. Acupuncture is also quite effective at balancing hormones and promoting a good night's sleep as well as reducing the intensity and frequency of hot flashes.

The "common knowledge" of sleeping is that people require 8 hours per day. That's actually incorrect based on the latest research. Apparently, 9 hours a day is most beneficial. So if you're only getting 7 1/2 hours, consider going to bed a 1/2 hour earlier for a week and see how you feel. You'd be surprised what 30 minutes more sleep will do for your energy level, ability to focus, and general sense of well-being.


10. Choose to have a great day Sure.

This sounds too good to be true. But try it anyway. When you wake up in the morning, take a few deep breaths and picture going to work with a spring in your step and a smile on your face.
Visualize all of the people responding to you in a positive way, and you taking the time to listen to them with all your attention. Think about having lunch and enjoying the food as something nourishing to your body, mind and spirit allowing you to return to work, refreshed and rejuvenated. You've undoubtedly heard the maxim that "you create your own reality." The Taoists have a saying "You are what you eat, think and do, and become what you ate, thought and did." Please try this for a few days, and remember - smiles are free, give a few away today.

EAT LESS, LIVE LONGER

Eating less food will increase your life expectancy

Tuesday July 31,2012

 

By Jo Willey Health Correspondent

EATING less is the key to living longer, with a low-calorie diet the only proven way to prolong life, an expert has revealed.

BBC Scientist Matthew Mosley says that regular fasting holds the secret to living to a ripe old age.

He said: “The bottom line is that calorie restriction is the only thing that’s ever really been shown to prolong life.”

In a new Horizon documentary, Dr Mosley, 55, a qualified doctor who has become the face of popular science on the BBC, reveals compelling evidence about a surprising new key to healthy longevity.

And that is to simply cut down on the amount we eat forever.

Earlier this year, he challenged Britain’s gym culture by showing that small bursts of intense exercise is just as effective as pounding the treadmill three times a week.

Moving on from that, he wanted to see how science can help people stay fit for longer and looked to 101-year-old marathon runner Fauja Singh for answers.

For ten years he’s lived on 1,600 calories a day

Dr Mosley

Speaking to the Radio Times, Dr Mosley said: “What’s immediately striking about him is that he’s very skinny but very fit.

“‘He’s 5ft 8in and weighs just over eight stone. He eats a calorie-light, vegetable and plant-based diet that still sustains him for his physical activity. Eating relatively low amounts is a good thing.”

Japan’s Okinawa population are one of a number of communities across the world which follow low-calorie diets and live far longer than the global average.

Tests on animals including fish, rodents and dogs have shown that calorie restriction seemingly increases both their average and maximum lifespan.

Dr Mosley said: “Ultimately, ageing is a product of a high metabolic rate, which in turn increases the number of free radicals we consume. If you stress the body out by restricting calories or fasting, this seems to cause it to adapt and slow the metabolism down. It’s a version of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

As part of his research for the programme, Dr Mosley visited a devotee of calorie restriction in the USA.

He told the magazine: “For ten years he’s lived on 1,600 calories a day, almost a thousand less than the daily recommended requirement for adult males, and at 5ft 9in he weighs nine-and-a-half stone – he was originally 13 stone.

“He’s in great shape; he has a low body-fat composition and his arteries are pristine. He was a compelling example of the way calorie restriction can improve overall health.”

Dr Mosley has also discovered that occasional fasting can offer some of the benefits of permanent calorie restriction.

This centres around the hormone IGF-1 which is similar to insulin and plays an important role in childhood growth.
Low levels stunt growth, while high levels contribute to cancer and ageing.

Studies have shown that IGF-1 can be restricted in adults by fasting as long as the amount of protein eaten is cut at the same time.

For the programme, Dr Mosley fasted for three and a half days and said he learnt that he could control his hunger and that eating was often more because of habit rather than actual need.

Previous research has shown that cutting calorie intake by around 60 per cent, while maintaining vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients, can prolong life by up to 40 per cent.

It is also thought to slash the risk of developing cancer, heart dsease, diabetes and stroke, while staving off age-related degeneration of the brain and nervous system.

An extra-low calorie diet is believed to reduce the damage to cells caused by compounds known as free radicals.

These compounds have been linked to heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease but can be neutralised by the antioxidants found in healthy foods.

Living longer, staying healthy

Published online

30 July 2012

Lifespan in nematodes is markedly extended when an unusual combination of aging components is engineered into their genome.

In the wild, nematode life often ends in a predator's jaws. Even evading those encounters, Caenorhabditis elegans lives just a fast and furious 2 weeks. Engineered worms in Stuart Kim's lab at Stanford University Medical Center, however, sail past their 1-month birthday, reaching 230% of their natural lifespan.

When postdoctoral fellow Dror Sagi approached Kim with the “wild and crazy” idea to not just extend an organism's life but engineer healthy aging, Kim says he found it conceptually surprising and courageous. For example, researchers studying aging had not previously added zebrafish genes to the nematode genome, a step that seemed more likely to cut the worm's life short than extend it. This work—5 years in the making—shows the opposite to be true.

Applying a stepwise genome engineering approach to study how aging can be influenced, the researchers overexpressed specific nematode and zebrafish genes. Each engineered module endowed the animals with longer life. In human terms, the babies and children developed normally and “turned 18 on time,” but then came a shift, says Kim. “We're keeping worms in middle age for a long time,” he says, adding that this result is a promising avenue for future research.

With their successive experiments, the scientists added individual components into the nematode genome: worm genes with known life-extension qualities, genes in anti-aging pathways, non-native genes with orthologs in the nematode, and a gene from zebrafish with a function not found in the worm. Achieving gene expression across species boundaries is trivial, says Sagi, a physicist drawn to bioengineering and aging research. Less trivial is creating a modular, anti-aging gene expression strategy. Although the team considered human genes, they chose zebrafish for physiological reasons: both fish and worms are cold-blooded, and they live in a similar temperature range, says Sagi.

The team created expression vectors for nematode genes that are known to be life extending when overexpressed: hsf-1, aakg-2 and sod-1. With a view to different functionality, they reached for pathway players such as lmp-2, known to be part of cellular protein cleanup. They also tested overexpressed vertebrate genes: the zebrafish genes sod1, which encodes a free-radical destroyer, and ucp2, which lacks a worm ortholog.

The gene ucp2 encodes an uncoupling protein that appears to slow aging through mitochondrial action and, in warm-blooded mammals, helps manage thermoregulation. The researchers also picked the zebrafish lyz gene, an element of vertebrate-class defense weaponry lacking in C. elegans. The gene encodes an enzyme that thwarts pathogenic bacteria, which also plague nematodes.
The researchers found that worm lifespan increased by about one-third with single components, and combinations ratcheted up the effect. With two components, the nematodes lived around 70% longer; triple elements led to a 95% gain; and the quadruple constellation delivered a 130% lifespan boost.

To obtain evidence of physiological changes in the transgenic animals, the team set up several types of assays. Success turns the assays into the experimental bottleneck because they can take as long as 3 months, the scientists say. As the worms live longer, plates get crowded, and the risk of contamination soars.

The researchers believe that their work opens the door to engineering genomes that include complex functions and pathways derived from other species. “Maybe we can just install them as a module into a worm and can expect them to work out of context and to benefit the worm,” Kim says. Although a bottled fountain of youth for vertebrates is not yet reality, this genome infusion offers a sip of future possibilities.

$5 Million Grant Awarded by Private Foundation to Study Immortality

The John Templeton Foundation grant to UC Riverside philosopher John Fischer will fund research on aspects of immortality, including near-death experiences and the impact of belief in an afterlife on human behavior

By Bettye Miller on July 31, 2012

The John Templeton Foundation has awarded philosopher John Martin Fischer $5 million to study issues related to immortality.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — For millennia, humans have pondered their mortality and whether death is the end of existence or a gateway to an afterlife. Millions of Americans have reported near-death or out-of-body experiences. And adherents of the world’s major religions believe in an afterlife, from reincarnation to resurrection and immortality.

Anecdotal reports of glimpses of an afterlife abound, but there has been no comprehensive and rigorous, scientific study of global reports about near-death and other experiences, or of how belief in immortality influences human behavior. That will change with the award of a three-year, $5 million grant by the John Templeton Foundation to John Martin Fischer, distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, to undertake a rigorous examination of a wide range of issues related to immortality. It is the largest grant ever awarded to a humanities professor at UC Riverside, and one of the largest given to an individual at the university.

“People have been thinking about immortality throughout history. We have a deep human need to figure out what happens to us after death,” said Fischer, the principal investigator of The Immortality Project. “Much of the discussion has been in literature, especially in fantasy and science fiction, and in theology in the context of an afterlife, heaven, hell, purgatory and karma. No one has taken a comprehensive and sustained look at immortality that brings together the science, theology and philosophy.”

The John Templeton Foundation, located near Philadelphia, supports research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution and infinity to creativity, forgiveness, love, and free will.
Half of the $5 million grant will be awarded for research projects. The grant will also fund two conferences, the first of which will be held at the end of the project’s second year and the second at the end of the grant period. A website will include a variety of resources, from glossaries and bibliographies to announcements of research conferences and links to published research. Some recent work in Anglo-American philosophy will be translated for German philosophers who, in the last 30 years, have been increasingly studying the work of American philosophers.

UC Riverside Chancellor Timothy P. White said Fischer’s research “takes a universal concern and subjects it to rigorous examination to sift fact from fiction. His work will provide guidance for discussion of immortality and the human experience for generations to come.  We are extremely proud that he is leading the investigation of this critical area of knowledge.”

Noting Fischer’s renown as a scholar of free will and moral responsibility, Stephen Cullenberg, dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, said, “There is perhaps no one better suited to lead a multidisciplinary research project on the question of immortality and its social implications. The Templeton Foundation’s generous support will enable scholars from across the world to come to UCR to investigate how the question of immortality affects all cultures, albeit in different ways.”
Anecdotal reports of near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences and past lives are plentiful, but it is important to subject these reports to careful analysis, Fischer said. The Immortality Project will solicit research proposals from eminent scientists, philosophers and theologians whose work will be reviewed by respected leaders in their fields and published in academic and popular journals.
“We will be very careful in documenting near-death experiences and other phenomena, trying to figure out if these offer plausible glimpses of an afterlife or are biologically induced illusions,” Fischer said. “Our approach will be uncompromisingly scientifically rigorous. We’re not going to spend money to study alien-abduction reports. We will look at near-death experiences and try to find out what’s going on there — what is promising, what is nonsense, and what is scientifically debunked. We may find something important about our lives and our values, even if not glimpses into an afterlife.”

Fischer noted that while philosophers and theologians have pondered questions of immortality and life after death for millennia, scientific research into immortality and longevity are very recent. The Immortality Project will promote collaborative research between scientists, philosophers and theologians. A major goal will be to encourage interdisciplinary inquiry into the family of issues relating to immortality — and how these bear on the way we conceptualize our own (finite) lives.
One of the questions he hopes researchers will address is cultural variations in reports of near-death experiences. For example, the millions of Americans who have experienced the phenomenon consistently report a tunnel with a bright light at the end. In Japan, reports often find the individual tending a garden.

“Is there something in our culture that leads people to see tunnels while the Japanese see gardens?” he asked. “Are there variations in other cultures?” What can we learn about our own values and the meanings of our finite lives by studying near-death experiences cross-culturally (as well as within our own culture)?

Other questions philosophers may consider are: Is immortality potentially worthwhile or not? Would existence in an afterlife be repetitive or boring? Does death give meaning to life? Could we still have virtues like courage if we knew we couldn’t die? What can we learn about the meaning of our lives by thinking about immortality?

Theologians and philosophers who examine various concepts of an afterlife may delve into the relationship between belief in life after death and individual behavior, and how individuals could survive death as the same person.

“Many people and religions hold there is an afterlife, and that often gives people consolation when faced with death,” Fischer said. “Philosophy and theology are slightly different ways to bring reason to beliefs about religion to evaluate their rationality. If you believe we exist as immortal beings, you could ask how we could survive death as the very same person in an afterlife. If you believe in reincarnation, how can the very same person exist if you start over with no memories?

“We hope to bring to the general public a greater awareness of some of the complexities involved in simple beliefs about heaven, hell and reincarnation, and encourage people to better understand and evaluate their own beliefs about an afterlife and the role of those beliefs in their lives.”

For example, “We think that free will is very important to us theologically and philosophically. And heaven in the Judeo-Christian tradition is supposed to be the best place. Yet we arguably wouldn’t have free will in heaven. How do you fit these ideas together?”

At the end of the project Fischer will analyze findings from the Immortality Project and write a book with the working title “Immortality and the Meaning of Death,” slated for publication by Oxford University Press.

The Weird Neuroscience of Immortality --Uploading the Human Mind

          

Neuroscientist Kenneth Hayworth, 41, recently of Harvard and a veteran of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, believes that he can live forever, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "The human race is on a beeline to mind uploading: We will preserve a brain, slice it up, simulate it on a computer, and hook it up to a robot body." Hayworth wants his 100 billion neurons and more than 100 trillion synapses to be encased in a block of transparent, amber-colored resin—before he dies of natural causes. Why?  Because Hayworth believes that he can live forever.

"If your body stops functioning, it starts to eat itself," Hayworth says, "so you have to shut down the enzymes that destroy the tissue." If all goes according to plan, I'll be a perfect fossil." Then one day, not too long from now, his consciousness will be revived on a computer. By 2110, Hayworth predicts, mind uploading—the transfer of a biological brain to a silicon-based operating system—will be as common as laser eye surgery is today.
Haysworth is pioneering the field of connectomics --a new branch of neuroscience. A connectome is a complete map of a brain's neural circuitry. Some scientists "believe that human connectomes will one day explain consciousness, memory, emotion, even diseases like autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's—the cures for which might be akin to repairing a wiring error. In 2010 the National Institutes of Health established the Human Connectome Project, a $40-million, multi-institution effort to study the field's medical potential."

Connectomics scholar Sebastian Seung, a professor of computational neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a prominent proponent of the grand theory, describes the connectome as the place where "nature meets nurture."* Hayworth looks at the growth of connectomics—especially advances in brain preservation, tissue imaging, and computer simulations of neural networks—and sees a cure for death. In a new paper in the International Journal of Machine Consciousness, he argues that mind uploading is an "enormous engineering challenge" but one that can be accomplished without "radically new science and technologies."

"There are those who say that death is just part of the human condition, so we should embrace it. 'I'm not one of those people," he adds.* Hayworth ansers critics his many doubters in academia saying that science is about overturning expectations: "If 100 years ago someone said that we'd have satellites in orbit and little boxes on our desks that can communicate across the world, they would have sounded very outlandish." One hundred years from now, he believes, our descendants will not understand how so many of us failed for so long to embrace the idea of immortality.

"We've had a lot of breakthroughs—genomics, space flight—but those are trivial in comparison to mind uploading. This will be earth-shattering because it will open up possibilities we've never dreamed of."* In 1986, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education, "researchers did manage to map the nervous system of a millimeter-long soil worm known as C. elegans. Though the creature has only 302 neurons and 7,000 synapses, the project took a dozen years. (The lead scientist, Sydney Brenner, who won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2002, is also at Janelia Farm.) C. elegans's remains the only connectome ever completed. According to one projection, if the same techniques were used to map just one cubic millimeter of human cortex, it could take a million person-years."

"In 2010, Jeff Lichtman, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard and a leading light in connectomics, and Narayanan Kasthuri, also of Harvard, published a small paper full of big numbers. Based on their estimates, a human connectome would generate one trillion gigabytes of raw data. By comparison, the entire Human Genome Project requires only a few gigabytes. A human connectome would be the most complicated map the world has ever seen." State of the art methods of preserving brain tissue top out at around one cubic millimeter—far, far short of an entire human brain.

"Mind uploading is part of the zeitgeist," says MIT's Sebastian Seung. "People have become believers in virtual worlds because of their experience with computers. That makes them more willing to consider far-out ideas."

Taking a stark contrary view, J. Anthony Movshon, of NYU, says that more than 25 years after the C. elegans connectome was completed, he says, we have only a dim understanding of the worm's nervous system. "We know it has sensory neurons that drive the muscles and tell the worm to move this way or that. And we've discovered that some chemicals cause one response and other chemicals cause the opposite response. Yet the same circuit carries both signals." He scoffs, "How can the connectome explain that?"

"Our brains are not the pattern of connections they contain, but the signals that pass along those connections," concludes Movshon.

Get more vitamin D and live longer: study

Safe sun exposure increases vitamin D and helps you live longer, according to new research. Photo / Thinkstock

 

People who are out in the sun getting more vitamin D tend to live longer, a new study has found.
Researchers looked at the medical records of about 4300 adults aged over 60 and found those who had low levels of the vitamin had double the risk of dying early. Those who were frail tripled their risk.

"What this really means is that it is important to assess vitamin D levels in older adults and especially among those who are frail," said lead researcher Dr Ellen Smit of Oregon State University.
"As you age, there is an increased risk of melanoma, but older adults should try and get more activity in the sunshine," Dr Smit said.

"Our study suggests that there is an opportunity for intervention with those who are in the pre-frail group, but could live longer, more independent lives if they get proper nutrition and exercise."
When a person is frail they walk slowly, have weak muscles, lose a lot of weight unintentionally, are often exhausted and have low levels of physical activity, according to the university.

The design of the study means researchers can't be certain whether frail people become vitamin D deficient or whether low levels of the vitamin cause people to be frail.

"If you have both it may not really matter which came first because you are worse off and at greater risk of dying than older people who are frail and don't have low vitamin D," Dr Smit said.
About 30 per cent of New Zealanders don't get enough vitamin D.

You can increase your levels of the vitamin through safe sun exposure and by eating things like oily fish (think salmon, tuna, sardines, eel and warehou), milk and milk products and eggs.

A Point of View: Would you want to live forever?

Are people foolish to crave everlasting life? Writer Theodore Powys' reflections on immortality capture the paradox - and downsides - of living forever, says philosopher John Gray.

"The longest life may fade and perish," wrote Theodore Powys, "but one moment can live and become immortal."

It's an arresting thought, and never more so than today when so many people are doing whatever they can to live longer. There's nothing new in the quest for longevity. Ancient Chinese and early modern European alchemists dreamt of an elixir that would give perpetual life. In Mary Shelley's novel, Dr Frankenstein pursues the dream by reanimating bodily parts of the dead.

But it is only in recent times that the dream has captured masses of people, with millions following diets and exercise regimes in the hope that they can put off dying for as long as possible. There are a few who go further - groups of immortalists, who have their cadavers frozen until technology develops to a point where they can be resuscitated or who stuff themselves with hundreds of vitamins every day while looking forward to a time when they can upload their minds into cyberspace and escape death altogether.

• John Gray is a political philosopher and author of False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism

It would be rash to assume that such far-fetched ideas will never be feasible. We're living longer than any previous human generation, and there's no obvious limit to this process.

A more interesting question is why anyone would want to live forever. Wanting more years of healthy longevity is natural enough - which of us, if offered a pill that would ensure 30 more such years, wouldn't take it?

Wanting to live forever is different. In trying to escape death, we are attempting to transcend the natural world. Long before using technology to overcome mortality became scientifically conceivable, most of the world's religions promised some kind of afterlife to their followers.
But this only pushes the question one step further back. Why do so many religious people want so fervently to believe that death isn't the end?

Theodore Powys was a religious writer who was happy to believe that death is the end. An author once admired by some of Britain's leading writers and critics, but who until recently was almost forgotten, he was born in Derbyshire in 1875 the son of a clergyman and one of three brothers who were writers - the other two being John Cowper Powys and Llewelyn Powys, also well-known writers in their day.

Life and times of Theodore Powys

• Born in Derbyshire in 1875
• Son of clergyman, siblings included writers John Cooper Powys and Llewelyn Powys
• Shied away from modern world
• Also known as TF (Theodore Francis) Powys
• Set tales in exaggerated rural landscapes, reducing people to barest elements
• Mr Weston's Good Wine (1927) is best-known novel - also wrote Unclay and short story collection Fables
• Religion coloured his writings
• Influenced by Nietzsche and Bunyan
• Died in 1953

Theodore made an unsuccessful attempt at farming in East Anglia and then spent the rest of his life in semi-seclusion in a succession of remote villages in Dorset, where he married a local girl and devoted himself to a life of writing and contemplation. Though everything he wrote had in some way to do with religion, there is no reason to think he had any religious beliefs.

Throughout his life, he went to the village church, but when asked why answered, "Because it's quiet". His novels and short stories - fables and allegories of recurring human passions etched against a background of country life - show the influence of the King James Bible and John Bunyan, but he was also a close reader of Nietzsche and Freud. He didn't reject Christianity as much as use it to express his own, highly original view of life.

This originality is nowhere clearer than in Powys' attitude to death. Published in 1927, Mr Weston's Good Wine, his best-known novel, tells how a wine merchant called Mr Weston arrives one dull November evening in an old, mud-spattered Ford van in the Dorset village of Folly Down, accompanied by an assistant called Michael.

Mr Weston is a short, stout man dressed in an overcoat and wearing a brown felt hat under which his hair is "like white wool", who has come to the village to sell his wines. The wine merchant "had once written a prose poem that he had divided into many books", Powys tells us, only to be surprised when he discovers "the very persons and place that he had seen in fancy had a real existence in fact" - in Folly Down.

 

Dark wine of death, anyone?

Mr Weston turns out to be the creator not only of Folly Down, but of the world, though he lacks many of the attributes that are given to God in religious tradition. At times, he's sad and lonely, he isn't infallible or omniscient - his assistant Michael is shown as being more knowledgeable about human ways - and while he looks on the human beings he has brought into being with a kindly eye, he also envies them.

Powys never explains why Mr Weston has come to sell wine in Folly Down, but we are told that there are two good wines for sale - the light white wine of love and the dark wine of death. When asked if he drinks the dark wine himself, Mr Weston replies, "The day will come when I hope to drink of it, but when I drink my own deadly wine the firm will end."

Mr Weston may have created the world, but he wants nothing more than a human life. He and Michael - a tall, handsome fellow with an eye for the village girls - delight in the comedy and the beauty of the earthly scene.

 

Dead or alive: Frankenstein's monster

The wine merchant has no illusions about human beings - how could he, since he created them? He knows all about their greed and cruelty, but still he envies them. What he brings his creations is what he wants himself. At the end of the story, having dispensed his wines in the village, he is driven to the summit of Folly Down hill, where the engine stops and the car's lights go out. He and Michael talk for a while, until Mr Weston politely asks his assistant to drop a burning match into the petrol tank.
"Michael did as he was told. In a moment, a fierce tongue of flame leaped up from the car; a pillar of smoke rose above the flame and ascended into the heavens. The fire died down, smouldered and went out. Mr Weston was gone."

What human beings possess that Mr Weston lacks, until he achieves it at the end of the novel, is mortality - the very prospect of final death that religions have promised to deliver us from.
That immortal beings might envy humans is not a new thought - you'll find it in Greek myths, where the gods meddle in human affairs in order to savour something of the transient joy of mortal life. Expressing the same thought by using Christian imagery, Powys captures a paradox at the heart of our thinking about death and the afterlife - there's a kind of immortality that only mortals can enjoy.

There are people frantic for eternal life. A few years ago I met people who were vesting their savings in the cryogenic movement - a movement that undertook to freeze your body after you were dead and keep it until such time as science came up with the solution to whatever had killed you, at which moment you could be defrosted, cured, and resume your life.

Little attention was being paid to two serious disadvantages: what might the world be like when you emerged from the deep freeze, would they still have iPods and aeroplanes, supermarkets and killer heels. And secondly, why would anyone bother to defrost you when you had already paid up and had no possible means of redress?

Theologians and mystics distinguish between eternal life and everlasting existence. Human immortality, they say, doesn't mean going on and on in perpetuity - it means leaving time behind, and joining God in eternity. What these religious thinkers have never explained is how humans can exit from time without becoming unrecognisably different from all that they have ever been.

The immortal soul that supposedly survives death isn't the quirky, fleshly human being that we have been in life. A faded image of what we once were, it's a kind of ghost. The same is true of the uploaded minds envisioned by those who seek an escape from death in cyberspace. A computer-generated phantom floating in the ether isn't a human being, just a high-tech shadow. The shade might persist forever, but the human individual would be dead and gone.

Theodore Powys had no interest in that sort of immortality, and neither do I. Powys' delightful fable - so much more subversive of conventional religion than the sermons of the new atheists - points to immortality of a different kind, one that we can experience without losing our human identity. If Mr Weston thinks his deadly dark wine is good for human beings, it's because only creatures that live in passing time can know moments of undying value.

There are no such moments in a life that can never end. In such a life, there's nothing to treasure, nothing that has value because it cannot come again. Our lives have meaning because they are bounded by death. That's why, at the end of the book, Mr Weston chooses to join the mortals he has created and vanishes from the scene.

The paradox is that it's only because we die that we can know what it truly means to be immortal.

From BBC

Does Coffee Help You Live Longer?

By Editor, on July 28th, 2012

A new HealthBeat message from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) features a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, finding that “Coffee drinkers have a lower risk of dying from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, respiratory disease and infections” than persons who do not drink coffee.

The HHS HealthBeat, published on July 26, 2012, refers to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which analyzed data on 402,260 people ages 50 to 71, to see if coffee drinking was linked to risk of death.

The study, on “Association of coffee drinking with total and cause-specific mortality,” led by Dr. Neal Freedman of NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI), was published in the May 17, 2012 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Study; Method

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers examined data from 229,119 men and 173,141 women who participated in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study. The participants were 50 to 71 years old, and none had cancer, heart disease, and stroke at the beginning of the study. The extent of the participants’ coffee consumption was measured by a questionnaire at the beginning of the study, along with many other measures of diet and other lifestyle factors.
During the follow-up period between 1995 and 2008, a total of 33,731 of the men and 18,784 of the women in the study died. Their causes of death were recorded.

The researchers used statistical analysis to measure “the association of coffee drinking with subsequent total and cause-specific mortality.”

Findings

The researchers found that, after adjusting for other risk factors such as tobacco-smoking and alcohol consumption (which increased death risk), coffee drinkers appeared to have a lower risk of dying than those who did not consume coffee.

Overall, that analysis found that “compared to men and women who didn’t drink coffee, those who drank 3 or more cups per day had approximately a 10% lower risk of death,” according to a report on the study published in June by the National Institutes of Health.

More specifically, as to the men in the study: the researchers reported that, according to their analysis, after adjusting for other risk factors, compared to men who did not drink coffee,

• the men who consumed 1 cup of coffee per day had a 4% lower risk of dying during the study period;
• men who drank 2 or 3 cups of coffee per day had a 10% lower risk of dying during the study period;
• men who drank 4 or 5 cups of coffee per day had a 12% lower risk of dying during the study period; and
• men who drank 6 or more cups of coffee per day had a 10% lower risk of dying during the study period.

As to the women in the study: the researchers reported that, according to their analysis, after adjusting for other risk factors, compared to women who did not drink coffee,

• the women who consumed 1 cup of coffee per day had a 5% lower risk of dying during the study period;
• women who drank 2 or 3 cups of coffee per day had a 13% lower risk of dying during the study period;
• women who drank 4 or 5 cups of coffee per day had a 16% lower risk of dying during the study period; and
• women who drank 6 or more cups of coffee per day had a 15% lower risk of dying during the study period.

The researchers stated their findings scientifically, as follows:

“Adjusted hazard ratios for death among men who drank coffee as compared with those who did not were as follows: 0.99 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.95 to 1.04) for drinking less than 1 cup per day, 0.94 (95% CI, 0.90 to 0.99) for 1 cup, 0.90 (95% CI, 0.86 to 0.93) for 2 or 3 cups, 0.88 (95% CI, 0.84 to 0.93) for 4 or 5 cups, and 0.90 (95% CI, 0.85 to 0.96) for 6 or more cups of coffee per day (P<0.001 for trend); the respective hazard ratios among women were 1.01 (95% CI, 0.96 to 1.07), 0.95 (95% CI, 0.90 to 1.01), 0.87 (95% CI, 0.83 to 0.92), 0.84 (95% CI, 0.79 to 0.90), and 0.85 (95% CI, 0.78 to 0.93) (P<0.001 for trend)."

The authors also reported that “Inverse associations [lower risks of death for coffee drinkers, as compared to those who did not drink coffee] were observed for deaths due to heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections, but not for deaths due to cancer.”

“Results were similar in subgroups, including persons who had never smoked and persons who reported very good to excellent health at baseline,” the researchers noted.

Conclusions; Implications

“In this large prospective study, coffee consumption was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality,” the researchers concluded.

As to why coffee may be associated with a lower death risk, the NIH noted in its report on the study that “The most-studied compound in coffee is caffeine, but the findings [in the study] were similar among those who drank their coffee caffeinated or decaffeinated.”

Dr. Freedman, the study’s lead author, said that “The mechanism by which coffee protects against risk of death—if indeed the finding reflects a causal relationship—is not clear, because coffee contains more than 1,000 compounds that might potentially affect health.”

The authors call for further study to examine how coffee may act to protect health, if it does. They point out that in the study, coffee consumption was measured only by one questionnaire at the beginning of the study, and therefore may not reflect actual consumption over the course of the study. Furthermore, the participants did not report how their coffee was prepared (espresso, boiled, filtered, etc.). “Preparation methods can affect the levels of many compounds in coffee,” according to the NIH report on the study.

Dr. Freedman, the lead author, and his colleagues also cautioned that their study does not prove that coffee actually causes people to live longer. “Whether [the association between coffee consumption and lower death risk found in the study] was a causal or [merely] associational finding cannot be determined from our data,” the authors wrote.

Further study would be required to rule out other potential causes for the association, and examine the mechanism by which coffee may affect health.

“Although we cannot infer a causal relationship between coffee drinking and lower risk of death, we believe these results do provide some reassurance that coffee drinking does not adversely affect health,” Dr. Freedman concluded.