Stop Aging Now!
© Robert M. Oliva
Millions of people are suffering from what is called degenerative disease. This includes such ailments as arthritis, heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's. And why do the same individuals suffer from so many seemingly unrelated disorders? Although we are living longer, we are not immune to very painful and fatal diseases that make our later years unbearable. Why is this so? What is causing so many of us to have to suffer under the burden of such mass illness? Well, researchers may have come up with the answer. According to the Life Extension Foundation, chronic inflammation may be the reason we are aging and suffering.
In the January 2002 issue of Life Extension, William Faloon writes that “In what will soon become a medical breakthrough, Life Extension has identified a reversible culprit (systemic inflammation) that is involved in the development of age-related diseases.” This can be great news for all of us. We all have experienced the onset of pain and general deterioration of organic function as we age. When we report these pains and malfunctions to our doctors we are usually told that we have to accept the fact that we are aging. Maybe that’s not good enough advice anymore. Maybe there is another reason and just maybe there is something we can all do to stop the degenerative process. Let’s take a look.
Aging and Inflammation
According to Fallon, inflammation causes untold problems in our bodies and has been ignored by mainstream medicine. New research is indicating that aging and our epidemic of age related diseases may be caused by an “increase of inflammatory cytokines (destructive cell-signaling chemicals) that contribute to many degenerative diseases.” Fallon uses the example of rheumatoid arthritis as the classic autoimmune disease in which high levels of cytokines contribute directly to the inflammatory process. Arteriosclerosis, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart dysfunction all have increased and chronic inflammation in common. When blood profiles are taken of people suffering from the above mentioned diseases it is found that nearly all have elevated levels of cytokines. The cytokine C-reactive protein has recently been directly implicated in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. What this means is that beneath all of these diseases is an inflammatory process that causes continued degeneration if left untreated.
Fallon offers some scientific evidence to back up his assertions. Several studies were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2001 regarding heart disease demonstrating “that blood indicators of inflammation are strong indicators for determining who will suffer a heart attack. One of these studies indicated that people with “high levels of C-reactive protein were almost three times as likely to die from a heart attack.” Fallon concludes by saying that “A growing consensus amongst scientists is that common disorders such as atheriosclerosis, colon cancer and Alzheimer’s disease are all caused by a chronic inflammatory syndrome.”
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