Historical Accounts of Super Longevity: Living On the Vine
- From: Ablang <ron916@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:54:29 -0700 (PDT)
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Historical Accounts of Super Longevity: Living On the Vine
Human lifespan
Human lifespan over the centuries
Did anyone really find the secret of longevity long ago? The answer
is, maybe. Lacking a time-reversal machine, this can only be
speculated. But a review of the subject is certainly intriguing.
Moses lives 120 years
Biblical records claim Moses lived 120 years, having fasted 40 days
and nights. "And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he
died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." (Deuteronomy
34:7) Moses had great eyesight and vigor to his dying day.
It is the fasting that is attention grabbing here. "And he (Moses)
was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither
eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of
the covenant, the ten commandments." (Book of Exodus 34:28)
The modern term for fasting is calorie restriction. Scientists
believe a limited calorie diet will not only produce immeasurable
quality of life (memory retention, vigor, disease resistance), but
will also prolong life by 30-50 more years.
Some say the Bible is archaic and accounts of Biblical patriarchs
living for hundreds of years are fairy tales. There is no way to
separate mythology from fact, but there are some historical records of
super longevity that now, in retrospect, are beginning to make sense.
Mr. Ho lives 130 years in China
The first of these to be examined is from China, more than twelve
centuries ago. One account that stands out is that of a Mr. Ho, who
lived in Hebei Province, but at age 58 was impotent and childless. He
was advised to eat an herb, which he thereafter consumed regularly.
Soon after, he fathered a child and several more children thereafter.
His grey hair turned black. His vision improved. He lived to age 130
years. Mr. Ho's longevity was written about 813 AD.
The interesting note about Mr. Ho's story is that he is reported to
have taken the root of the herb and made it into a fine powder and
then took it with wine. The homemade herbal drug that Mr. Ho consumed
later became the Chinese herb Ho-Shou Wu, "shou" referring to black
and "wu" to hair.
polygonum multiflorum
Root of Polygonum multiflorum.
What Mr. Ho refined to powder and added to wine 1200 years ago.
Today Ho Shou-Wu is also known as fo-ti, and marketed as a dietary
supplement. It's botanical name is Polygonum multiflorum. As an
impure, raw herb from traditional Chinese medicine shops, it has been
associated with modern accounts of liver toxicity, probably meaning it
was mixed with other botanicals. But don't be frightened away from
this herb so easily. It contains a molecule similar to an age-
reversing molecule modern researchers are now heralding.
So, Mr. Ho didn't fast like Moses. He just drank his herbal wine.
What's the connection?
Moving forward in time by another six and a half centuries, another
interesting account of super longevity surfaces. This account is very
well documented by the longevitarian himself.
An Italian lives 102 years in the Middle Ages
Luigi Cornaro (1464-1566 AD), a nobleman living in Padua, Italy, at
age 35 was declared a drunkard and glutton by his doctors and advised
to live a temperate life. From that moment on Luigi measured out his
food, only 12 ounces a day, and his drink, only 14 ounces (3 glasses)
of wine a day. Only an Italian would deem three glasses of wine to be
an example of temperance.
Luigi Cornaro carefully documented his state of health by writing
treatises, which became evidence of the sharpness of his mind, as well
as a record of his health practices. He lived 102 years, in great
health, dying in a rocking chair, never having suffered the typical
ravages of old age, just like Moses. Cornaro claimed he could jump up
on a horse, run up stairs, even sing songs, at age 91. Here is a
short discourse from Luigi Cornaro's book:
Luigi Cornaro
Luigi Cornaro, 1464-1566 AD
"I have decided to write on the vice of intemperance in eating and
drinking. To remedy this state of things, it is requisite that men
should live up to the simplicity dictated by nature, which teaches us
to be content with little, and accustom ourselves to eat no more than
is absolutely necessary to support life, remembering that all excess
causes disease and leads to death."
"I solemnly assure all mankind that I really enjoy a great deal more
than I can mention, and that I have no other reason for writing, but
that of demonstrating the great advantages, which arise from
longevity, and such a life as I have lived--I desire to convince men,
that they may be induced to observe these excellent rules of constant
temperance in eating and drinking, and therefore, I never cease to
raise my voice, crying out to you, my friends, that your lives may be
even as mine."
Yes, Luigi Cornaro was practicing both calorie restriction, and its
molecular mimic, red wine. To explain, the wine-drinking French are
known to have the highest percentage of 100-year olds on the planet
and one of the highest calorie diets. Researchers at Harvard only
recently reported that consumption of resveratrol, a red wine
molecule, might make it possible to live long and healthy, as Luigi
Cornaro did, and Mr. Ho did. Even more exciting is the possibility of
doing this without having to deprive oneself of food, as Moses did.
Turns out, say Harvard researchers, fasting or calorie restriction,
however you want to term it, and red wine drinking, activate the same
gene switch. The gene, Sirtuin 1, is a DNA repair "survival" gene
that is activated when food is sparse.
Italians in the U.S. drinking wine in the 1950s
Italians in the U.S. drinking wine in the 1950s
The example of Roseto, Pennsylvania
Fast forward in time again, to the 1960s. A report involving the
Italian immigrant population in Roseto, Pennsylvania in the 1960s and
70s pertains to the current debate over the alleged benefits of wine
consumption. Male residents age 55-64 in Roseto appeared almost immune
to heart attacks. Here is what was said of the male residents of
Roseto:
Medical researchers were drawn to Roseto by a bewildering statistic:
in defiance of medical logic, Rosetans seemed nearly immune to one of
the most common causes of death. They died of heart attacks at a rate
only half of the rest of America. Doctors were mystified in that
residents led what medical textbooks predicted would be short lives.
The men of the village smoked and drank wine freely. They spent their
days in backbreaking, hazardous labor, working 200 feet down in nearby
slate quarries. At home, the dinner tables each evening were laden
with traditional Italian food, modified for local ingredients in ways
that would drive a dietitian to despair.
The Mediterranean diet, with its use of olive oil rather than animal
fat, has been touted lately for health benefits. But, poor immigrants
couldn't afford to import cooking oil from their homeland and instead
fry their sausages and brown their meatballs in lard. Yet, the
resulting hefty bodies contained unusually health hearts. Why?
When first studied in 1966, Roseto's cardiac mortality traced a unique
graph. Nationally, the rate rises with age. In Roseto, it dropped to
near zero for men aged 55-64. For men over 65, the local death rate
was half the national average.
This was all documented in the Journal of the American Medical
Association.
The French Paradox, the fact the French were living long despite their
high calorie diet, wasn't reported till the 1990s. It was announced on
the Sixty Minutes television show in 1992. The Roseto Effect was
reported in the 1960s and it could not be explained by knowledge at
the time. Sociologists could only guess the Roseto Effect was
associated with close family ties. The red wine effect was overlooked.
These rotund, pasta-loving Italian immigrants were drinking their
beloved red wine, 3 to 5 glasses a day, imported from Italy.
When the 1600 Italian residents of Roseto were compared with 5000
residents of nearby Bangor, the Rosetans exhibited a far lower heart
attack rate "despite an equal prevalence of the usual risk factors,
mainly smoking and diet." Moreover, there were no significant
differences between the coronary patients, with or without survival,
and their sex, age, and cholesterol matched controls; nor were
smoking, evidence of hypertension, diabetes, or obesity predictive of
significant differences between the two groups.
Moses fasted. Mr. Ho drank herbal wine, which extracted by
fermentation a resveratrol-like molecule from the root of an herb.
Luigi Cornaro ate a limited calorie diet and drank wine. The men of
Roseto, Pennsylvania just drank red wine. The French drink red wine
and live 45-65% longer in wine growing districts compared to the rest
of France. The picture becomes more and more clear.
Even when the people on the Japanese island of Okinawa are carefully
examined, we not only find they are among the longest living human
populations on Earth due to their limited calorie diet, but they also
wrap their daily-consumed rice cakes in the leaves of a green plant
that contains resveratrol.
In modern times, the oldest living man, Antonio Todde (115 years) of
the Italian isle of Sardinia, and woman, Jean Calment (122 years) of
France, were both wine drinkers. Coincidence?
It is worth speculating that modern humans could anticipate living ten
decades or more in great health, by limiting calorie intake or
drinking red wine, or both -- or a safer alternative -- taking red
wine resveratrol pills.
What now?
Most Americans fear living longer and becoming mentally incompetent,
physically disabled and a burden upon their families. Could a red
wine pill avert all this?
There is no way to conclusively prove resveratrol pills improve the
healthspan and lifespan of humans. A study to prove this would take
90-100 years to complete and simply is unfeasible. But the historical
record is consistent, and it is being backed by the best available
science. All life forms tested to date (yeast cells, fruit flies,
roundworms, cold-water fish and warm-blooded mammals), live longer
when resveratrol is added to their diet. Mice given resveratrol in a
recent lab study retained their balance and coordination (motor
skills) despite a very high-fat diet, and lived 31% longer to boot.
Resveratrol delivers on its promise of improving the quality and
quantity of life.
Recently National Institutes of Aging researchers were asked, "is this
real?" Their answer: "we think so." How long will humanity wait
before it takes action on this growing body of evidence? What will it
take to convince humanity, before age-related disease over-burdens
every family in developed countries?
Most fear living extra long and becoming senile. Others are concerned
about overpopulation. Yet a red wine resveratrol pill might delay the
effects of aging by a decade or more, making the retirement years
healthy instead of burdensome years, and preventing the depletion of
saving accounts that rapidly dwindle once retirees are overwhelmed
with age-related health problems.
Population experts say 25 percent of Americans who live to age 65 will
live to age 92 and beyond. Will these near-centenarians inevitably
suffer with chronic health problems in their latter years, or live
actively and vigorously as did Moses, Mr. Ho, Luigi Cornaro and the
others cited in this report?
Many Americans want to wait till their doctor advises them what to
do. Few will adopt limited-calorie diets even if prescribed by a
doctor. Others will drink more red wine, but much of the wine today
is not made in the traditional fashion of the French and provides very
little resveratrol.
Red wine pills offer a non-alcohol alternative, but lab researchers
say they have tested many brands and found them to be of marginal
quality (even the fo-ti). The secret apparently lies in re-creating
the dark, cool, airtight environment of a wine bottle, which preserves
resveratrol from degradation by light, heat or oxygen. This is
duplicated in a special type of airtight resveratrol capsule that has
recently become available and has been independently tested to
maintain resveratrol in a dietary supplement capsule, with a shelf
life of two years or more.*
New buzz word: resveratrol
A Washington Post article says resveratrol is one of the new words
that has entered the everyday American vocabulary. It will be
interesting to see how the American people respond to this unexpected
development, which researchers say will only continue to be validated
in future scientific studies.
Oh, yes, almost forgot to mention, some modern-day users of the
specially-preserved (airtight) red wine pill report their grey hair
has returned to its youthful dark color again, just like Mr. Ho
claimed twelve centuries ago.
-Copyright 2007 Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc. Bill Sardi has
a commercial interest in red wine pills.*Longevinex
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