HEALTHY LONGEVITY

Sun Simiao wrote ‘Anyone over forty years old should avoid laxatives ─because it will weaken his body─ and begin to take tonics. Anyone over fifty years old should take tonics all year round; such are the secrets of nourishing life to enjoy longevity.’ At FullCircle Acupuncture HealthCentre, we recognize the health promoting role of tonics, stress management, meditation, good nutrition, nutrient medicine, herbs, and supplements. 

It is the ethos of humanity that regardless of age one needs to look good and appear healthy and active to maintain one’s identity; and at any given point in the continuum countless therapies are being marketed to achieve the appearance of healthy aging. Most of the therapies available, are still leading the patients toward cosmetic surgery, botox, testosterone, and human growth hormone treatments. Cosmetic improvements do not equate with healthy longevity, and some of the purely cosmetic anti-aging treatments take a toll on the underlying health of the patient. If health deteriorates, no amount of cosmetic surgery or steroid pumping will make one look or stay healthy. To be healthy, prevent disease, maintain Yin & Yang balance or hormonal and metabolic homeostasis, decrease various stresses and keep active, one needs to build and maintain healthy longevity from the foundation up. Chinese Medicine has a long history of promoting healthy roots, supported by a plethora of modern scientific evidence.

A comprehensive approach is the best prescription for successful healthy aging. The regimens maintained in youth, of work, diet and lifestyle, do not work to keep healthy as one ages. For healthy longevity, the choice is not between cosmetic treatments and a medical alternative approach; but it is the imperative attention to the whole person and adjustments of work, diet, and lifestyle. Understanding this is necessary as a first step to taking responsibility for personal wellbeing and that of those around us.

The literature shows that up to 21 percent of the total U.S. population were taking 3 or more prescription drugs between 2005 and 2008, and that prescription of synthetic testosterone had become the most popularly prescribed drug, despite alarming links to cardiovascular risk. Polypharmacy as a protocol in aging has created negative health outcomes and higher healthcare costs and has been largely guided by concerns for profit rather than the best interest of the patient. In the meantime, incidence of malignant cancer in those age 75 and older was 23 percent, with 70 percent of cancer deaths occurring in persons age 65 and older. Pharmaceutical spending is largely driven by excessive polypharmacy to the aging population.

Many Americans are now taking personal responsibility for their health, educating themselves, and seeking help by integrating Complementary Medicine into their healthcare as preventive medicine. This strategy will not only benefit the individual but will help the nation in that the population will be healthier and the healthcare system will better tend to the most ill with lower cost. There is growing proof that Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) works comprehensively to address the key physiological aspects of aging, inflammatory imbalance, oxidative stress, and shortening of telomeres on the chromosomes of the cells, and a doctor of Chinese medicine, or knowledgeable licensed acupuncturist and herbalist can both help and guide a sound protocol supporting healthy longevity.

To have healthy, productive, and graceful maturing, it is necessary to maintain a dynamic balance between pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory loads. This means that to help prevent cancer and premature degeneration of various organ systems, one has to balance modern lifestyle and food intake, by checking those that overload pro-inflammatory and decrease the anti-inflammatory factors. This is achieved by following healthy aging protocols in the form of daily exercise, consumption of fresh vegetables and fruits, green juices, pasture raised animal proteins, healthy fats and diminished carbohydrates, limiting alcohol consumption to one or two drinks per day, quitting cigarette smoking or any other sort of smoking, and getting periodic acupuncture treatments and herbal tonics. When this is not sufficient or possible, taking proper dietary supplements and nutrient medicine is helpful.

Much like today, the community in ancient China had a tendency to seek easy and dramatic answers to longevity, making use of alchemical elixirs that were sometimes toxic if not fatal, that led to the governmental regulation and bans on information and ingredients of some of these elixirs that purported to insure immortality. On the other hand, the Chinese government adopted many public health programs promoting healthy Daoist practices, like eating sparingly, to insure health in old age, mainly to decrease the financial burden on the country’s healthcare system and increase the productivity of the population as it aged.

This development in Chinese alchemical medicine was called the practice of Nei Dan and was the basis for modern practices such as Qigong, TaiChi, nutritional medicine, and herbal remedies to promote healthy longevity. While, in the West, biomedical doctors have created supposed anti-aging clinics that promote an often very costly program of drugs and hormone replacement therapies, usually not covered by health insurance, and often steering the patient toward cosmetic procedures such as botox and plastic surgery; patients who do their research find that a relatively inexpensive and individually tailored program of healthy longevity can be achieved with a proactive approach and utilization of the TCM physician. Indeed, many of the treatment protocols in Western anti-aging clinics, in addition to their hormonal replacement therapies, were derived from Chinese medicine, nutrient medicine, and herbal chemistry.

Biomedical anti-aging clinics now dispense many herbal and nutrient medicines to help with longevity, and the public at large is spending a fortune on self-prescribed over-the-counter herbal supplements to try to maintain vitality. However, the public should be aware that to achieve results with longevity regimens, utilizing the professional whose specialty is herbal and nutrient medicine, namely the doctor of Chinese medicine, or licensed acupuncturist and herbalist, is a sensible approach. Medical doctors have no real training in these areas. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has facilitated the misuse of natural medicines by keeping the United States from adopting international regulation and standards in herbal medicine, allowing companies to routinely sell products that do not contain the actual product or dosage listed on the label. Products heavily advertised are the most suspect in an industry with almost no government regulation.

The first thing that the aging population needs to understand, is the goal of longevity, the definition of longevity, and the objective scientific facts, which support in remarkable ways the practices of the ancient Chinese programs in Daoist TCM practice and public health. Optimal-aging is the point, not anti-aging; given that aging naturally occurs. Looking great and maintaining vitality in all aspects of life follows from optimal-aging and health maintenance. Restoring the respect for the elders in society involves showing the society that with age comes both beauty and wisdom, and this is the challenge facing an aging population.

AGING, ANTI-AGING, AND LONGEVITY

Longevity is simply defined as a long duration of life, and aging is the process of becoming mature and fully developed. In medical dictionaries, longevity is defined as duration of a particular life beyond the norm for the species. According to Stedman’s Medical Dictionary aging is defined as “the process of growing old, especially the failure of replacement of cells in sufficient numbers to maintain full functional capacity; particularly affecting cells as neurons, incapable of mitotic division.” Modern science has proven to be an unreliable source for the ultimate facts concerning aging. In recent years, we have learned that the standard belief in modern science that all neurons are incapable of replacing themselves in aging, is false.

Since the brain is the most important part of the body that one strives to age gracefully, for it regulates the health of the rest of the body, attention to neural health in aging is very important. We now know definitively that some adult neurons positively do undergo the most fundamental type of replacement, mitosis, and that all neurons and neural support cells in the brain are capable of regeneration. The mistaken belief in the past, was that once the brain matures, it could not produce more cells, because the space for growth was defined by the skull, and so the brain was complete at birth. Advanced imaging techniques have shown us that precise areas of the brain degenerate in size with specific health problems and may also increase in size with the restoration of health.

On the subject of longevity, it is a fact that neural support cells, or glial cells, do undergo mitosis, that communicating axons and myelin sheaths do regenerate, and that the main neurons, do replace components and are subject to the same regulation of apoptosis ─programmed lifespan and cell death─ as are all aging cells. More importantly, we now know that increased oxidative stress with aging, and failure to adjust lifestyle and diet to decrease physiological stress with aging, is perhaps the main component to the neural degeneration that lies at the heart of aging. So, individuals that are concerned with healthy aging should understand two fundamental concepts. One, aging is not about superficial appearance, but rather that one’s appearance mirrors their underlying cellular maintenance as they age; and two, modern or western medicine is not dedicated to the understanding and treatment of aging.

As the individual looks at their own health maintenance with aging, choices must be made concerning how best to promote healthy skin, hair, muscle, joints, organs, and most importantly to aging, the brain. The key organs, or visceral systems that we need to understand and be concerned with, are the gastrointestinal system and the biota, the adrenal/kidney system, and the workhorse of our metabolism, the liver. When these systems are maintained, cardiovascular health will also be maintained, and if these key visceral systems are unhealthy, no amount of drugs to block cholesterol formation or high blood pressure will prevent degeneration of the blood vessels and the heart. A holistic approach that keeps all of these systems vital, and addresses both the mind and body, substance and energy, that defines us as a living organism, is necessary to address longevity and the nurturing of vitality in aging.

GOALS IN AGING, LONGEVITY, AND XIAN

We cannot halt the aging process in a species because programmed aging and death is a fundamental part of the regulation of the species; but of course, this has never stopped humans from pursuing immortality. The desire to beat death is an obsession that the human race may never give up. The most popular religions today have at their core the triumph by humans over death, and historians have perpetuated the false notion of mythical immortality.

The word Xian咸 was originally, wrongly translated as Immortal. The famous “immortals” in ancient China are still a popular theme in movies and literature, but in reality the term Xian咸 ─the ancient Chinese Daoist “immortals,” does not really mean immortal, or even living beyond the normal lifespan. It means instead Yang Sheng养育生, or Nurturing Life. Daoist cults developed around the theme of “immortals,” resulting in the mythology of supposed immortals, but according to the famed British historian of Chinese civilization, Joseph Needham, the term Xian咸, referred instead to the Daoist cultivation of optimum aging, or maintenance of the highest state of function into the normal old age; and this is what the legacy of  Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM provides for individuals today.

In ancient China, the Daoists were a group of scientists that played a fundamental role in shaping not only Traditional Chinese Medicine, but government policies and social structure. Daoism is the study of natural science and the universal patterns or laws. It was a scientific perspective and philosophy that sought to help individuals understand that leading a life that was adhering to natural law, or universal patterns, would help create the healthiest and most productive life.

As this philosophy progressed, great thinkers, such as Sun Simiao, the physician philosopher of the Sung Dynasty 581─682 AD, known as the King of Medicinals, extended the application of Daoism to the formation of a healthy civilization, and the extension to the individual’s realization of their role in the macrocosm. One of the key concepts in Daoism is that if the individual lived in greater harmony to their environment, adjusted their lifestyle and diet with seasonal changes, and understood the natural changes that came with aging, optimal aging or longevity, would occur for that individual.

If the person then consumed the correct herbs and minerals, the results may be astounding, and the individuals that followed the Daoist prescription and consumed the “elixirs of life” would be unusually healthy and intelligent in their old age. These people were referred to as “Xian咸” In Chinese writing, each character is more of a concept than a word. The word Xian咸 in Chinese writing is composed of the characters for human and mountain and signifies “the sages that took up a life of healthy practices and contemplation outside of the urban environments.” Sun Simiao strived at helping the general public to achieve this optimal aging of the Xian for the society to achieve greater goals.

For the ancient Daoist Xian, the program to achieve optimal aging ─Yang Sheng养育生, or Nurturing Life, involved a holistic regimen that culminated in macrobiotic transformations within the body. The term macrobiotic, became distorted as a simplistic dietary regimen from Japan in the 1970s, but in essence it signifies that concept of the organism creating a healthy biota and biotics. The term biota means the array of flora and fauna within the body, with the flora referring to the symbiotic microbial cells that make up the greatest number of cells in the body, and fauna referring to the human cells.

These microbial friends outnumber the human cells by about 40 to 1, and account for a large percentage of the nutrient chemical production in the body, as well as integrating with both overt functions and genetic expression of regulatory proteins. The healthy symbiosis of flora and fauna may be essential to optimal aging and was certainly important to the macrobiotic concepts of the ancient Daoists in China. The term biotics refers to the science of vitality, vital function, and the life functions within the organism.

Macrobiotics means the holistic enhancement of biotics for the purpose of prolongation of life. For the individual concerned with healthy longevity, understanding how to improve the biota and biotics is a fundamental task. Today, understanding of the individual biota and its relation to health has become the subject of much research, and the development of improved prebiotic and probiotic regimens and concern with antibacterials and the negative consequences on the human biota is finally occurring.

Four areas that are fundamental for healthy longevity are biotics, neural health, the endocrine system, and the hypothalamus. While one might look at the self and judge aging mainly on appearance, even the health of the skin, hair and musculature depends on the health of two most basic aspects, the gastrointestinal biome, and the health of the central nervous system, or brain. The third fundamental area of concern in aging is the endocrine system, and especially the main endocrine axis between the adrenal ─kidney system─ and the hypothalamus ─command center at the top of the brain stem. By improving the functions of the adrenals and the hypothalamus, each person, as we age, will be able to maintain good health and appearance much better, and insure optimal aging.

ADRENAL GLANDS

• Adrenal glands, also known as suprarenal glands, are small, triangular-shaped glands located on top of both kidneys.
• Adrenal glands produce hormones that help regulate the metabolism, immune system, blood pressure, response to stress and other essential functions.
• Adrenal glands are composed of two parts — the cortex and the medulla — which are each responsible for producing different hormones.
• When adrenal glands do not produce enough hormones, this can lead to adrenal insufficiency (Addison’s disease).
• Adrenal glands may develop nodules that can be benign or malignant, which can potentially produce excessive amounts of certain hormones leading to various health issues.
  

ANATOMY OF THE ADRENAL GLANDS

The adrenal glands are made of two main parts:

The adrenal cortex is the outer region and also the largest part of the adrenal glands. The glands are divided into three separate zones: zona glomerulosa, zona fasciculata and zona reticularis. Each zone is responsible for producing specific hormones. The most important are aldosterone (a mineralocorticoid), cortisol (a glucocorticoid), and androgens and estrogen (sex hormones). Aldosterone helps the kidneys control the amount of salt in the blood and tissues of the body.

The adrenal medulla is located inside the adrenal cortex in the center of the adrenal glands. It secretes hormones that initiate the flight or fight response. The main hormones secreted by the adrenal medulla include epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline), which have similar functions.

The adrenal cortex and adrenal medulla are enveloped in an adipose capsule that forms a protective layer around the adrenal glands.

LONGEVITY PRESCRIPTIONS IN ANCIENT CHINESE MEDICINE AND DAOISM

Probably the most well-known of the Daoist physicians that wrote of longevity was Sun Simiao, in about the 7th century AD. In Chinese, the fundamental concept of longevity adhered to the concept of nurturing life, or Yang Sheng养育生. This was approached with a holistic concept, nurturing both the mind and body. Dietary principles, meditation, Qigong exercises and visualization, a quiet and contemplative lifestyle, and most importantly, steady activity and striving, were keys to longevity in Daoist medicine.

Sun Simiao wrote:
The Way of nurturing life consists of never moving nor standing for a long time, never sitting nor lying for a long time, never looking nor hearing for a long time. Extended looking (as in sitting at a computer without breaks) damages the blood, extended lying down (such as the ‘couch potato’) damages the Qi, extended standing damages the bones, extended sitting damages the flesh (causing myofascial syndromes), and extended moving (like long distance running) damages the sinews (tendons and ligaments).

Excessive thought imperils the spirit and scatters the will, excessive desires muddle the will, excessive business affairs exhaust the physical body, excessive speech wears out the Qi, excessive laughter damages the viscera, excessive worry intimidates the heart, excessive joy makes the intentions spill over, excessive happiness makes forget mistakes and become bewildered and confused, excessive anger makes the hundred vessels unsettled (cardiovascular and neural problems), excessive likes make lose concentration, and excessive dislikes make haggard and dismal.

Avoid overeating, overdrinking, and heavy lifting. Avoid anxiety and worrying, great anger, sorrow and grief, great fear, jumping about (excitability), too many words and great laughter. Avoid eagerly capturing desires and avoid holding on to hatred. All of these are harmful to longevity. If unable to observe these proscriptions, will not extend health into old age. Therefore, a person who is good at preserving life constantly reduces excess thinking, ideas, desires, business affairs, speaking, laughter, worrying, joy, happiness, anger, likes and dislikes. Observing avoidance of these twelve reductions of excess, is the essence of nurturing life. Failing to eliminate these twelve excesses, construction and defense (cell regeneration and immune function) will lose their measure, and Qi and blood will flow frenetically (neurological and cardiovascular problems). This is the root to losing life. In Daoism only a person who has neither too much nor too little of these is able to approximate the Way of Things.

These words of the great Chinese physician-philosopher Sun Simiao show that a mind-body harmony was considered all-important to the physical well-being and physiological optimum function of the person. So we see the importance of moderation in all things with this advice, avoidance of repetitive stress, emotional overreaction, overthinking and overwork, and then, with the right diet, herbal medicine, healthy activities such as walks, yoga, Qigong, and living sensibly in tune with nature and the seasons, one may achieve the most in old age.

RESVERATROL AND SIRTUINS

Resveratrol is a chemical found in quantity in the Chinese herb Polygonum Cuspidatum, bushy knotweed or HU ZHANG. This chemical is also found in very minute quantities in grape skins, and thus in red wine. A number of other Chinese herbs contain resveratrol, among them is wild rhubarb root or DA HUANG. Chinese research on Resveratrol has found it to be very impressive in its effects, both as an antioxidant and neuroprotective agent, and is now widely used, even in standard medicine. The effects proven in scientific studies are so dramatic that the pharmaceutical companies have been spending much money on creating a synthetic analog or altering the chemical in a way that is patentable.

Beneficial cardiovascular effects, anti-inflammatory, insulin-like, anticancer, and antiviral effects have been noted in scientific studies. Specific longevity effects have been shown in laboratory studies, benefiting the healthy aging on animal studies, but not extending their lifespan. As we have discussed previously, the goal of longevity is not to challenge the predetermined lifespan, but rather to improve the vitality of the organism. Resveratrol helps accomplish this task admirably.

Sirtuins are a class of proteins that have received much focus with the advance of longevity research related to resveratrol, that is the active chemical in the Chinese herb Polygonum Cuspidatum, or HU ZHANG. These proteins possess enzymatic activity that affect the life of genetic components of cells, or the histones, which the DNA wraps around, and ADP-ribose ─adenosine diphosphate ribose, which affects proper cell signaling.

Histones are highly alkaline proteins that compress the DNA strands and provide orderly genetic expression. ADP-ribose regulates the TRPM2 ─Transient Receptor Potential Cation Channel Subfamily M Member 2, a cell signaling pathway that is very important to cellular genetic maintenance, especially in the brain. In the brain, TRPM2 has been found to be involved in the insulin hormone effects on cell maintenance and lifespan, mediation of responses to an important immune cytokine TNF-alpha, and regulation of the effects of toxicity of amyloid beta plaques, which are associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Sirtuins are also important to the functions of bacteria; and with aging, increased low-grade bacterial infections may play a significant role in chronic disease and expression of chemicals that interfere with normal cellular maintenance and apoptotic mechanisms. There are 5 known classifications of sirtuins (Sir), Sir1 and Sir2 in the first classification have received the most attention. Sir2 affects the nuclear components, or cytoplasm of the cells; while Sir1 affects the nucleus and cytoplasm. The nucleus is the site of the cellular DNA.

Sir2 affects the cell cycle ─apoptotic and maintenance mechanisms─ and tumorigenesis. Sir1 affects cellular inflammation and metabolism. While Sir2 has received more attention in pharmacological research to find a chemical modulator that may affect basic cellular aging mechanisms, resveratrol has been proven to stimulate the enzymatic activity of Sir1 as a protein enzyme that deacetylates signaling proteins that contribute to cellular regulation, reaction to stressors, and longevity. Sir1 is downregulated in cells that have high insulin resistance, and it is believed that resveratrol increases insulin sensitivity to help regulate blood sugars and induce Sir1 expression.

A 2013 report by the famous researcher, David Sinclair of the Harvard Medical School, supported by Clemens Steegborn at the University of Bayreuth, in Germany, showed that resveratrol does indeed activate Sirtuin proteins to stimulate increased mitochondrial function, but only in conjunction with a key amino acid, acting as an activator, such as the hydrophobic tryptophan.

Sir1 is shown to benefit the longevity mechanism when cellular autophagy ─which we may call cell cleansing or parts replacement─ occurs, and that activation of Sir1 by resveratrol or other means ignites this autophagy. The process of autophagy is also found to be enhanced with caloric restriction, and certain types of nutrient deprivation. This practice of fasting and nutrient deprivation was a mainstay in Daoist longevity routines thousands of years ago. Many notations on Daoist Xian who fasted from cereal grains (carbohydrates) is found in reference to longevity systems.

Here, too, we find proof of the efficacy of the ancient Daoist theories and practices. The modern individual may take a resveratrol pill with full fat yogurt, observe a short fast, or utilize a particular nutrient restricted diet, especially the avoidance of high caloric, high glycemic, simple carbohydrate foods and sugary drinks. These refined carbohydrates, now a significant portion of the modern diet, increase acidity in the body that disrupt sugar or carbohydrate metabolism. We see from the study of Sirtuins, that chronic acidity may damage histone function, and that an imbalance of our sugar metabolism may disrupt the ribose pathways and the ADP-ribose that also maintains the health of genetic signaling.

Other herbal and nutrient therapies that may stimulate autophagy include the isoflavones genistein and daidzein, found in the Chinese herb Psoralea Coryfolia BU GU ZHI, kudzu GE GEN, and the herb Red Clover; also, fermented soy -natto, green beans, alfalfa sprouts, mung bean sprouts,  chick pea -Garbanzos, and peanut. Isoflavones are a class of organic compounds found in foods and herbs that are related to isoflavonoids. Isoflavones have a broad array of beneficial effects, but the most publicized are the phytoestrogen and antioxidant effects in humans.

Like resveratrol and the chemicals in HU ZHANG and various foods, isoflavones have also demonstrated the ability to inhibit tumor growth in certain cancer cell lines, such as the LNCaP human prostate cancer cell lines ─Onozawa et al, 1998. Isoflavones were shown to be able to potentiate chemotherapy in pancreatic cancer cell lines, allowing for less toxic dosages to be effective when the patients were pretreated with genistein ─Li, Yiwei MD et al, 2004.

Insulin is thought to be one of the major suppressive factors for autophagy. Insulin resistance, or Metabolic Syndrome, often called a prediabetic state or diabetic type 2, is increasingly common in the population due to poor dietary habits and commercial foods with unnatural sugars and simple carbohydrates dominating. With insulin resistance, the need for increased insulin is required, and with increased insulin, the suppression of autophagy occurs. When this scenario plays out, the decline of cell function and integrity accelerates, and this is aging. Helping the immune system to achieve a balance of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses is very important and acupuncture and herbal medicine have been shown to provide such help. Clearly, a comprehensive and holistic protocol is needed.

HISTORICALLY, SOME HERBAL MEDICINALS PURPORTEDLY SLOWED AGING

The Shennong Ben Cao Jing is perhaps the most esteemed fundamental text of herbal medicine in China and is one of the 10 premodern classics of medicine selected by the People’s Republic of China for concentrated research of prehistoric medical information.

Shennong was one of the three fundamental patriarchs of the modern Chinese civilization, with Huang Di and Fu Xi, both of whom are well known with their association to Traditional Chinese Medicine and what became Daoism. The Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, or Shennong’s Fundamental Herbal Classic Text, known, for some reason, as The Divine Farmer’s Material Medica Classic, or the Divine Farmer’s Almanac, lists the slowing of aging, or promotion of longevity, as one of the key qualities of a number of classic herbs.

While modern research is still pursuing the efficacy in the chemistry of these herbs, and some of them may not seem particularly dramatic in their so-called ‘anti-aging’ effects, we might consider them as part of a more complex holistic regimen. Most of these herbs are in the general category of Kidney and Adrenal tonics, showing the astute and intuitive understanding -through trial and error- of the ancient Daoist physicians, recognizing that the kidney and the adrenal system deteriorate over time due to stress and its trigger mechanism of cortisol and insulin.

In modern times, the focus of research into herbal medicine to promote healthy longevity, or Yang Sheng in Daoist history, has been more focused on adaptogenic and Yang tonic herbs such as Rhodiola rosea HONG JING TIAN, Siberian ginseng CI WU JIA, Ganoderma Lucidum or Reishi mushroom LING ZHI, and Panax Ginseng REN SHEN, with much research proving the benefits of chemicals in these herbs to achieve a variety of goals in healthy longevity. Ayurvedic herbs such as Withania Somnifera Ashwaghanda SHUI QIE and Bocopa monieri BA JI TIAN have also been studied extensively and proven to benefit healthy aging.

Chinese herbal formularies to promote healthy aging address neuroprotective concerns, hormonal balance, adaptation to stress of all types, cardiovascular health, and improved immune function for better control of inflammatory cytokines. A number of gentle but effective herbs have a long history of inclusion in this comprehensive strategy, as do a number of nutrient medicines discovered in modern research. The herbal prescriptions for longevity concoctions in the Shen Nong Manual called for prolonged taking of the formularies. These formulas should be cooked with a classic double-boil extraction method.

In this preparation, the herbs would be placed in a one-pint jar filled with water, with a tight lid, that is then placed into another pan of water that also has a tight lid. The water in the outer pan is brought to a near boil, and then kept at a very low temperature, or flame, for a few hours, bringing the water in the jar to a near boil, but not with the high heat that would break down the herbal chemistry dramatically. The complete herbal chemistry is water extracted this way. Many older patients in China still use this method for longevity herbal formulas and sip the water in the pint jar daily. The physician will choose from the classically prescribed herbs to find an individualized formula for the patient for prolonged taking. Some of the herbs are bitter, and honey may be added to the water to improve taste, although the taste of the herbal medicinal is not the point, but rather the effects.

PRESERVING THE HEALTH GENES BY THE TELOMERES

Telomeres are sequences of amino acids, or nucleic acids, on the ends of the strands of chromosomes that make up our genetic code. These repeating sequences of the nucleic acid, the pairs thymine-adenine and guanine-cytosine have the same sequence on all cells of all people and appear to be an evolved trait to protect the chromosomes from degrading or getting too short to be able to divide in mitosis.

As we age, the telomeres become shorter, putting our genetic information at risk of malfunction, and in some cancers, the telomeres lengthen, preserving the life of the cancer cells and contributing to spread it. In humans, the average length of the telomeres at birth is about 8000 sequences, while the average length in old age is between 1500 and 3000 sequences of base pairs.

The telomeres appear to shorten consistently with repeated cell division, or mitosis, which continuously replaces old cells with new ones. In some parts of the body the cells do not divide and replace as often, such as the heart and brain, and telomeres do not shorten as much on these vital cells. In cancer cells, the mutated cells divide more often than normal, causing tumor growth, but the cells produce a specialized enzyme called telomerase that prevents the expected rapid shortening of telomeres.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, or Daoist medicine, theoretically humans are born with a quality that ancient Daoists called Jing, commonly translated as essence. The preservation of Jing was integral to the idea of longevity, and many medical practices were devised to preserve the Jing. In the modern study of telomere shortening on the essential aspects of the cells, the DNA strands of chromosomes, are primarily shortened beyond expectation by increased oxidative stress, or accumulation of reactive oxygen species ROS, or oxidants.

One big cause of excess oxidative stress is an imbalance of inflammatory processes; where the immune system does not keep up with the constant task of using pro-inflammatory mechanisms to clean up cells and fight infections and toxins, and the anti-inflammatory mechanisms are inadequate to prevent excess damage from the pro-inflammatory processes. Another source of damage to the DNA and telomeres comes from excess glycation, and accumulation of advanced glycation endproducts AGEs, which are complexes of sugar, protein and fat molecules that create a sticky binding that inhibits normal cell functions. Modern lifestyle and diet generates a lot of these reactive oxygen species, or oxidative molecules, as well as advanced glycation endproducts AGEs.

A less stressful lifestyle, as well as a more natural diet, and adherence to a life that is in harmony with natural law allows the body to do what it is programmed to do, maintain Yin & Yang balance or homeostasis and decrease oxidative stress and accumulation of advanced glycation endproducts AGEs that speed up the shortening of telomeres and aging of the cells. The ancient protocols in Daoist Medicine are now shown to achieve just these tasks, with the host of herbs, nutrients, and lifestyle practices, such as the practice of Qigong, utilized in Daoist Yang Sheng protocols, now proven to provide antioxidants, decrease advanced glycation endproducts AGEs, and preserve telomere length on healthy cells as they age.

While the study of telomeres in aging has achieved much recognition in the last 20 years, more than a decade of research has revealed that specific acupuncture stimulation shows beneficial effects on modulating healthy telomere regulation. In fact, the study of the effects of acupuncture and electroacupuncture on telomeres was one of the early surprising findings that stimulated more interest in the potential to preserve normal telomere length, as well as decrease telomere preservation in cancer cells, to design new therapies of anti-aging and cancer therapy.

While there is no drug or therapy that can indefinitely preserve telomere length, scientists have found a number of ways to decrease the rate of telomere shortening or aging of cells. So far, most of these successful means have been related to herbal and nutrient chemicals used in longevity treatments in Chinese Medicine. While allopathic medicine is exploring the means to block the production of telomerase to treat cancer, this type of therapy also comes with the adverse effects of telomerase blocking, shortening lifespan, impairing fertility, and inhibiting wound healing and the production of new healthy blood cells and immune cells in bone marrow.

In 2009, the New York based company T.A. Sciences announced that it had produced the only lab tested pharmaceutical to decrease telomere shortening. The drug, called TA-65, sought approval from the FDA, and was a biologic developed from chemicals in the Chinese herb Astragalus or HUANG QI, which has long been used in Chinese or Daoist medicine. The chemical TA-65 is produced at low levels in the HUANG QI plant, and the company found a way to purify and concentrate this substance, which encourages the enzyme telomerase to maintain and lengthen cell telomeres.

The FDA stated that this TA-65 was not a drug, because it did not cure a disease, and so it was termed a nutritional supplement, which requires no FDA approval, and for which there is almost no FDA regulation. In the meantime, this is a gift to the insurance companies because by law they do not have to pay for it, since supplements are not covered by insurance, while the cost of TA-65 is astronomical and prohibitive for most people. TA-65 costs approximately $14,000 a year. On the other hand, a comprehensive protocol of healthy diet and lifestyle changes, herbal and nutrient medicines, including HUANG QI and acupuncture, have proven effective to preserve or lengthen telomeres for relatively little money including the fees of the licensed acupuncturist and herbalist.

One source of advanced study into the modulation of telomeres is the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), which is pioneering much of this advanced research. On May 22, 2013, the UCSF website announced that famed researcher Dr. Owen Wolkowitz, discovered that increased shortening of the telomeres is also associated with Major Depressive Syndrome. Research has shown that with anxiety and depression the size of the hippocampus, a part of the brain associated with mood and neurohormonal regulation, decreases, and the researchers linked this hypotrophy of the hippocampus to the amount of telomerase activity, and shortening of telomeres, measured in white blood cells. The researchers also found that when depression resolved, the telomerase activity increased, and the patients with depression that were studied showed that those with a lower telomerase activity at baseline were most likely to benefit from treatment with Chinese medicine. The longer the patient had suffered from Major Depressive Disorder the shorter were the telomeres.

Wolfowitz’s team of researchers have also studied the effects of low-grade chronic inflammation and oxidative stress on depression and found a strong correlation. Such study confirms that benefits of a holistic protocol with Complementary Medicine to resolve depression and anxiety provide the potential for anti-aging, and anti-cancer effects. While pharmaceutical research will surely explore the potential for new types of drugs that treat depression by affecting telomerase, such allopathic treatment will come with adverse effects, along with the beneficial ones, and will not affect the whole array of mechanisms. The advantages of integrating Complementary Medicine into such protocol is obvious.

MULTIPLE GOALS ARE IMPORTANT TO HEALTHY AGING

To effectively design a protocol to help with longevity and healthy aging, the various goals of therapy must be individualized, and a thoughtful and realistic course of care must be designed to suit the needs of the individual. Some of the important goals and treatments studied to achieve them are: management and adaptation to stress, core protection, neuroprotection, cardioprotection, inflammatory regulation, protection of genetic telomeres, aiding kidney function, metabolic aid, tissue maintenance, and aiding hormonal balance are all important goals, and many studies, some of which are cited below, are available to provide evidence.  The HealthyLongevity^(c) Protocol at FullCircle Acupuncture HealthCentre addresses all these.

NUTRITION

INSOMNIA

OSTEOPOROSIS

SMOKING CESSATION

STRESS

SUPPLEMENTS

METABOLIC SYNDROME

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-Above Article Written by Dr. Osorio, Gloria DAOM, L.Ac. 2020.
-Article Revision and Compilation of new material by Dr. Osorio, Gloria DAOM, L.Ac. 2021