Defending Against Disease & Illness
Over the centuries, many different theories have been put forward for why all creatures age, and, of course, almost since the beginnings of time, mankind has been chasing the dream of stopping the aging process altogether and thereby living forever.
Modern theory of aging focuses on two different aspects that it is now believed work together in tandem to dictate the speed at which every individual human will ‘grow old’
The first of these theories, one that was originally popularized back in the early 1960’s, is that a critical factor in deciding how fast you will grow old is genetic.
This is based on the idea that the cells that make up all living organisms can only divide so many times before they start to do so less efficiently, leading to cells that are misshaped and malformed.
It is this ability to divide ‘properly’ that seems to establish the upper limits of how long an organism can ever hope to live, assuming that every other factor is in their favor (around 120 years appears to be the upper human limit).
These misshaped cells are what begins to make us old, and it appears that a mere handful of human genes that differ from one person to another are what can decide whether you live to fifty years of age or a hundred (barring earlier death from illness or accident).
So, it is fair to say that this element of the process of growing old is pretty much beyond the scope of any average human being to control or influence. Your genes are what they are, and science is not yet able to alter that fact on a large scale.
The second element of the aging process can, however, be significantly altered by what we eat, and, given that we already know that our diet is deficient, by extension, by supplements.
The human body is under constant attack by what are known as free radical cells, that is, cells of the human body that ‘go bad’ and start to attack the body itself.
Such free radicals are generally dealt with the body quickly and effectively, but, sometimes they become so overwhelming in strength or number that the body simply cannot cope.
When this happens, one of the effects is that the rogue cells seem able to accelerate the aging process considerably.
So, amongst other things that we will discuss later, free radical are responsible for making you age more quickly.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that there is an ‘antidote’ to free radicals, and they are called ‘anti-oxidants’ (because free radicals are formed as part of the process of oxidation within your body. Think of a piece of metal rusting, and you’ll have some idea of what oxidization does).
And the strongest antioxidants, the ‘triad’ are (thankfully) three of the easiest to find and most common vitamins that there are, Vitamin’s C, E and Beta-Carotene (Pro-Vitamin A).
Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, is the human body’s most important antioxidant and forms the front line of defence against free radical induced oxidative damage (i.e. aging).
Now, whilst some animal species can manufacture vitamin C as part of the normal metabolic process, a human being cannot do so.
For us, vitamin C can only be present in the body if it is taken on-board through our diet. Plus, it is water soluble, meaning that any that is not used will be rapidly excreted, meaning that our supplies must be replenished regularly.
Now, it appears that, whilst all free radicals are bad for the human conditions, different types of rogue cells are responsible for different medical conditions.
Vitamin C seems to be the main antioxidant in the fight against the aging process, so it is absolutely necessary that vitamin C is taken on board in sufficient quantities each and every day, in order to help slow the natural aging process as much as possible.
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