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Life Span Nutrition An Introduction
Life span nutrition is a philosophy of food
and its relationship to the human condition.
Life span nutrition means respecting food so
it can respect us.
Life span nutrition is not a "diet". It
is knowing what we eat. It is knowing how food affects us after we eat it — after
some minutes, after some hours, after some days, after some months and after some years.
It is knowing how the food we eat affects our life span.
Life span nutrition is neither euphoria of eating
nor denial of dieting. Life span nutrition is not about martyrdom before we eat or guilt
after it. It is not about calorie counting. It is not about dieting. It is not about
starving - gorging - starving cycles. Life span nutrition is not about "low
sugar," "high protein," "low fat" or "mega vitamin"
regimens. Life span nutrition is not about losing weight, though loss of excess weight
occurs as a natural consequence of knowing the relationship between food and life.
Life span nutrition is a lifelong interest. It is
about feeling better, looking better, and living better. It is about a slow and sustained
change in the way we think about food, feel about it, and are nourished by it.
My philosophy of life span nutrition evolved over
several years of clinical work with persons with severe immune and degenerative disorders.
It represents a blending of the enormous intuitive wisdom of the ancients in
matters of food and my concept that spontaneity of oxidation in nature is the essential
cause of the aging process, and by natural extension of pre-mature aging,
dis-ease, disease and death.
Foods, like people, have their life spans. Foods,
like people, can either live out their normal life spans or they can be subjected to
premature aging. Just as we humans suffer from degenerative diseases when we abuse our
bodies (or when viruses and bacteria abuse us), our foods suffer from degenerations when
they are abused by toxic fumigants, pesticides and chemical preservatives. It is one of
the great ironies of our time that we abuse our foods by using preservatives. Foods
may be eaten while they are young and healthful or when they have grown old and
degenerated.
The subject of human life span cannot be
separated from the subject of life span of our foods.
Each living thing must one day die. If it had not
been so for one single life form, that life form would have lived for ever and would have
crowded out all other forms of life from the planet Earth.
If one species of fish had lived for ever, it
would have filled up all the oceans, seas, rivers and lakes on our planet. There would
have been no room for any other species of fish. Or for any other form of life in the
water, any mollusk, any crab, any algae. If one single species of plant or animal on earth
were to be exempt from nature's "law of death", that plant or animal would have
packed every inch of the land.
Life must be preceded by death. Life, it seems to
me, can be understood only through death.
How did nature design this death-life-death
cycle? Nature is master planner. It is an ingenious designer. It has its own economy. It
rarely errs. It is self-correcting.
Recycling life is one of nature's
master stroke.
Oxidation is nature's grand design for
assuring that no life form lives for ever. Nature made oxidation a spontaneous process. It
requires no expenditure of energy. It needs no external cues or outside programming. In
scientific jargon, oxidation is defined as loss of electron by atoms and molecules. A
molecule is a group of atoms bonded together. Electrons are the tiniest packets of energy.
When atoms and molecules lose electrons, they lose energy. In oxidation, high-energy atoms
and molecules are changed into lower-energy level atoms and molecules. This is the essence
of the phenomenon of aging.
In the mid-sixties, Bjorksten and Harmon put
forth their theories of protein cross-linking and free radical injury respectively as the
basic mechanisms of the aging process. Healthy threadlike protein molecules normally occur
in different sizes. Individual molecules are bent and turned and twisted into many
different shapes. Yet, they fight hard to preserve their individuality. The term
cross-linking means these molecules are torn apart and when the ends unite, they get
tangled with each other and form crooked protein molecules. Cross-linked molecules are two
molecules wrapped around each other in such a way that neither can function normally. What
molecular events cause protein cross-linking? Oxidative injury. It is the oxidant
molecules that tear apart the health protein molecules and lead to tangling and
cross-linking of these molecules.
How does free radical injury begin? With
oxidative injury. Free radicals are highly unstable, extremely reactive atoms or molecules
that form when oxidant molecules injure other molecules. Aging of human tissues and
molecules cannot take place by free radical injury unless these radicals are first
produced as a result of oxidation. It follows that spontaneity of oxidation in human
tissues, and oxidative molecular injury that results, may be regarded as the true nature
of the aging process in man. Tissue capacity for anti-oxidant generation (production of
life span molecules to control the aging-oxidant molecules and related molecules called
oxyradicals) is determined by certain genetic and acquired factors. Life span molecules so
produced provide the essential molecular counterbalance to spontaneous oxidation. I draw
the evidence for this viewpoint from a large body of clinical and experimental data.
THE AGING-OXIDANT MOLECULES
During the early period of the development of my theory of life span
and aging-oxidant foods, I often wondered if these terms were suitable for communicating
my ideas of health and fitness to my patients. I started using these terms tentatively in
my seminars on nutrition for the life span. I soon discovered that patients without any
biology background at all could understand these terms, and the essential ideas behind
their use, easily and effortlessly. Indeed, people found the simplified concept of
molecular aging, disease and death described with these two terms a useful framework for
understanding nutrition. Below is a brief explanation of these terms.
The AOMs exist to assure that no life forms lives
forever. These molecules are present in each flower, each plant, each animal and each
person. These are powerful molecules, fully capable of instantaneously burning all
tissues. The AOMs can be divided into two broad categories: the internal metabolic AOMs
and the external synthetic and natural toxic AOMS. The examples of the first category
include aging-oxidant metabolic enzymes, minerals, proteins, fats and stress molecules.
The external AOMs include industrial pollutants, petrochemicals, synthetic household
chemicals, antibiotics, pesticides and herbicides. Radioactivity, ultraviolet waves and
other forms of radiation do not come under the strict definition of AOMs, but readily
generate AOMs by acting upon various atoms and molecules.
THE LIFE SPAN MOLECULES
Life span molecules are molecules that provide a
counterbalance to aging-oxidant molecules. These molecules exist to assure that the
aging-oxidant molecules do not cause instant combustion of all living forms. As each
flower, each plant, each animal and each person is made up of AOMs, so it is made up of
LSMs. LSMs exist to provide a counterbalance to AOMs. These molecules
"neutralize" AOMs and prevent unwanted tissue damage. It is their responsibility
is to assure that each life form gets the opportunity to live out its normal life span in
health, and with vigor and vitality. Examples of such molecules are vitamins, essential
fatty acids, essential amino acids, essential minerals, and other antioxidants.
ENZYMES: LIFE FORCE OF FOODS IN NATURE.
Enzymes are molecules that separate living
organisms from nonliving objects. Enzymes are catalysts in biologic reactions; these
molecules facilitate reactions between other molecules but in general are not used up in
those reactions. They "make things happen" between other molecules. Indeed,
enzymes are life.
Foods in nature are living things. Enzymes are what gives foods in
Nature their life. Indeed, enzymes are the life in foods. If this is true, why is the
subject of enzymes in human nutrition almost completely neglected by our nutrition
experts? The answer to this question has something to do with the limitations of the
available methods of scientific inquiry. The prevailing research models do not allow us to
fully understand the quality of life in enzymes.
Man has not been able to fully understand what life is. His science
has not been able to define what life is. Since the time modern man walked out of the Rift
Valley in central Africa (or so paleohistorians want us to believe), he has searched for
the true meaning of what life is and has failed consistently. In frustration, he has
expressed the essential nature of life as vital force, life force, energy force, or simply
vitality. Indeed, the poet and the philosopher have always been closer to describing the
quality of life than the scientist.
Returning to the subject of enzymes in foods, it
is essential to recognize that what brings proteins, fats, carbohydrates and minerals to
life is enzymes. Without enzymes, these substances would be nothing but lifeless masses of
molecules. Casimer Funk recognized the vital importance of some substances to health, and
his "substances" were called vitamins. Most vitamins are enzymes. Those that do
not meet the biochemical characteristics to be considered enzymes, primarily act to
facilitate enzymes.
To understand what enzymes are and how they
function, let us consider the example of automobile wheels moving on a road surface. When
the road surface is dry, the wheels "hug" the road and the driver is in easy
command of his vehicle. When it rains and the road surface is wet, the wheels do not hug
the road as well. The driver senses this change and slows down to improve his control over
his vehicle. During a freezing rain, ice prevents the wheels from hugging the road
surface, and the vehicle slides uncontrollably. If the driver does not slow down his
vehicle to a crawl or a stop, he may find himself in a ditch by the roadside. How does
this happen? The answer: The water reduces the friction between the tire and the road
(facilitates the "reaction" between the two). The play of the tire on the road
surface is looser and freer, and it loses its grip on the road surface. The driver senses
some difficulty of control. When water freezes, the smooth surface of the ice almost
completely eliminates friction between the tire and the road surface. The driver cannot
cope with such rapid play of the tire on the road and unless he slows down.
In the above analogy, water acts as an enzyme. It
is not used up but simply facilitates the movement ("reaction") between the
surfaces of the tire and the road (reduces friction between the two in common language).
So enzymes are life molecules that make things happen in living organisms.
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