Lose Weight, Have More Energy and Be Happier in 10 Days. Peter Glickman

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       Part II:

       Anti-Aging

      The current word for looking and feeling younger is “anti-aging,” which can mean different things to different people. Women in their thirties and forties use it to mean looking younger, and having less wrinkles and lines. Fifty- and sixty-year-olds frequently use it to mean being free of the diseases of old age: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer ’s and arthritis. Other people in their fifties, sixties and seventies think of it as extending life. Happily, they are all related. The following studies will show you that when you successfully extend life, you also reduce the risk for the diseases of old age, and you look younger!

Scientific Studies

      There has only been one scientifically proven method of extending life beyond the normal span of years, demonstrated over and over in eight different species of life, from single-celled yeast to monkeys.²⁶ (The studies on man are mentioned below.) This method is calorie restriction, which consists of reducing the amount of calories consumed by 30% to 40%, while ensuring optimum nutrition. This method was originally shown in 1934 to nearly double the life span of laboratory rats.²⁷

      Some would argue that it has been known for thousands of years.

       One-quarter of what you eat keeps you alive.

       The other three-quarters keeps your doctor alive.

      Hieroglyph found in an ancient Egyptian tomb

      The above Egyptian hieroglyph would be a fitting summary for a twenty-year study on monkeys begun in 1989. It showed that monkeys on calorie restriction lived longer with less age-related diseases (heart disease, diabetes, cancer and brain degeneration) and looked younger than monkeys free to eat all they wanted. Among the animals eating all they wanted, 13% developed diabetes and 29% became pre-diabetic. None of the calorie-restricted animals showed any such problems. The monkeys eating all they wanted had twice the rate of cancer, twice the rate of heart disease and three times the rate of diabetes and / or arthritis.²⁸

      You may wonder, “Why not study humans?” A study of humans would have to run at least eighty years to prove life extension. Fortunately, there have been “short” human studies that show the same kind of improvements in health. One six-month study reported a significantly lower risk of diabetes and reduced DNA damage.²⁹ (DNA is the chemical that controls how new cells are created. Less DNA damage means less abnormal cells and increased cellular health.) Another human study showed dramatic, long-term reduction in major heart disease factors “that usually increase with advancing age.”³⁰ The calorie-restricted group (ages 35-82) had triglyceride (blood fat) levels equal to the very healthiest twenty-year-olds, and their blood pressure levels were the equivalent of ten-year-old children!

      Other wise men have known this for hundreds of years:

       “To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy meals.”

      Benjamin Franklin

A More Practical Approach

      There are two methods of calorie reduction: continuous and intermittent (on and off). A frequent drawback to continuous calorie restriction is hunger. Another drawback is social occasions. Both of these make calorie restriction difficult. So, intermittent calorie restriction gives the advantage that you can eat anything you want the next day, making it easier.

      One study of intermittent calorie reduction found that over a year, mice fed three weeks on and three weeks off a 50% restricted diet with optimum nutrition had eight times less tumors than mice that ate all they wanted!³¹ More relevantly, a study of humans who fasted one day a month showed they were 39% less likely to have heart disease.³²

      Fasting for more than three days, however, has the advantage that after the first two or three days hunger generally disappears, and fasting as a means of calorie restriction offers the same health benefits.

      One hundred seventy-four people with high blood pressure were treated with a water-only fast for ten to eleven days under medical supervision, and then approximately six days on a low-fat, low-salt, vegan diet. All those who were on medication for high blood pressure were able to discontinue their medication after this treatment.³³

      This last study was repeated a year later on sixty-eight patients with borderline high blood pressure.³⁴ (Borderline high blood pressure is higher than normal, but not so alarming that medications are immediately essential.) This study also found that water-only fasting reduced blood pressure in the overwhelming majority of cases. More interesting, however, was the finding that drug treatment for high blood pressure on average only lowered it by twelve points; a low-sodium, low-fat, vegan diet with exercise on average lowered it by sixteen points; and the previous water-only fasting study showed it was lowered by thirty-nine points! Perhaps natural treatment is better.

      An interesting measure of rejuvenation not mentioned by modern researchers is sexual potency, fertility and drive. Although modern researchers have not mentioned it, it is well documented in the work of Herbert Shelton, who used fasting to treat 35,000 patients at his

      Natural Hygiene School.³⁵ He says in The Science and Fine Art of Fasting that although it is not a hard and fast rule, sexual desire and potency usually disappear during the fast and return at СКАЧАТЬ