Other Longevity Factors
(The following continues Chapter 2 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity.)
Sleep is important for a longer life, and, apparently, the more the better. Newborn babies and many convicts on death row sleep around 16 hours/day. Teenagers are supposed to get 9 hours/night. The optimal hours for adults range from 7 to 8 hours, but more if you’re pregnant and less if unusually conformed. I remember when I once worked for U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga and a Washington Post article headlined the “Senator Who Never Sleeps.” He boasted that he could get by with only a couple of hours per night. However, he tended to doze off in many hearings.
Medical studies have indicated that:
o You lose memory and weaken your immune system through sleep deprivation.
o Working the graveyard shift tampers with the sleep cycle and is reported to cause cancer and other ailments.
o Driver fatigue causes 100,000 motor vehicle accidents/year in the U.S.
o Women might have a higher life expectancy (seven years longer) because they sleep better. This might have to do with learning how to cope with crying babies.
o Poor sleep may raise the risk of diabetes.
Of course, sleep depends on genetics, the quality of sleep and timing. For example, naps are returning as a good thing, even in certain companies. One of the benefits of retirement is that you can sleep as much as you want, and for that reason, people like me should thus be healthier and skinnier (see obesity section above).
There is the matter of stress. In a nutshell, the less the better. Not sweating the small stuff helps people live longer.
Inflammation, the biological defense response of your body to harmful stimuli, was once not an item considered as important for long life. Now it is. You have experienced swelling, and redness. Your body is at work protecting you. Chronic inflammation can lead to tissue destruction and other ailments. Drug and herbal companies try to sell you products to reduce inflammation. Be careful, but there are benefits. Aspirin reduces inflammation. An all-purpose anti-inflammatory pill could well someday control diabetes, cancer, heart disease and dementia. Details will come in the next section, but a simple blood test for C-reactive protein (CRP) can detect inflammation in blood vessels for it is twice more likely than high cholesterol to cause a heart attack.
There is something about incubation periods or long term health problems that are disturbing. I recall sitting in on a talk a long time ago—maybe 20 years—about a viral terminal ailment, somewhat similar to mad cow disease, which you contract from eating organ meats. The problem is that if you ate a contaminated meal, you will die 20 years or so later. Wow, any day now! Good thing that the only exception I make is foie gras, for goose liver is not a particularly suspect example. But even something so simple as E. coli is troubling, for a decade or two later, you can be stricken with high blood pressure and kidney damage. Then there is lead. Higher lead exposure (such as inhaling leaded gasoline fumes and the product of combustion in the 60’s and 70’s) appears to correlate with accelerated aging of your brain. Well, don’t get paranoid…there isn’t much you can do about this now, although, no doubt, to be announced, will be nanobots to rid your body of that virus or advanced chelation (too absorb out the lead) treatments and the like.
Finally, do you want to live 14 years longer? According to the Cambridge University, all you need to do is to eat copious amounts of vegetables and fruits, not smoke, exercise and drink alcohol, albeit in moderation.
So, then, if you also sleep enough (or a lot), reduce stress and check inflammation, how long will you live? Try Thomas Perls’ Longevity Calculator to indicate how long you will live. Go to www.livingto100.com. It is supposed to take about 10 minutes to complete, but I got kicked out the first time. I tried again and learned I will live to between 96 and 98, meaning I have thirty years to go.
-
Crude oil is now down to $65.63/barrel. Almost a year ago petroleum reached $147/bbl and closed at a high of $145/bbl. I worry about the stock market on Monday.
-
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น