Health, Wellbeing, Competence and Aging by Ping-Chung Leung Jean Woo & Walter Kofler

Author:Ping-Chung Leung Jean Woo & Walter Kofler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814425681
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Figure 6.10. Left: 1100 years old cypress trees at Jingshan Gongyuan. Right: 550 years old “Monarch” sequoia in USA (Photos by authors). In the world of plants the enigma of longevity is already solved.

Equally strong was the Soviet biochemical branch of gerontology. Today one of the topics of intensive research worldwide is a role of SIRgenes (sirtuins) in longevity (Sinclair and Guarente, 2006). It has been proven that sirtuins’ expression is induced by several factors, including a lean diet. In this regards we have a pleasure to mention that pioneering work, which for the first time registered the life-prolonging effect of a lean diet in an animal model, was made as early as in 1914 in Russia by a zoologist from St. Petersburg (later — Khar’kov) Universities. E.A. Schultz demonstrated in Hydrae and Planariae that periodical starvation improves the regeneration processes and elongates lifespan of these Invertebrate (Schultz, 1914). In Western countries this concept’s origin is calculated from the later publication of Osborn (Osborn et al., 1917). The senescence in the opinion of many theoreticians and experimental scientists was tightly related to the “tempo of living”, sometimes interpreted as amount of genetically determined events per unite of time, sometimes — as a speed of metabolism. German physiologist Max Rubner (1854–1932) coined in an idea in 1908 that longevity depends on total energy expenditure and, thus on basic metabolic rate and oxygen consumption (we shall note, that role of thyroid gland in control of these parameters was already under his suspicions) (Rubner, 1908). Russian geriatrist and physiotherapist Abram (aka: Alexander) Solomonovich Zalmanov (1875–1965) (Fig. 6.12) interpreted the linkage between senescence and oxygen as a necessity of balance in oxygen supply and supply of substrates of oxidation (Zalmanov, 1966). This is in accordance with much later studies on complete and non-complete reduction of oxygen and relation of non-complete reduction to production of free radicals, proven agents of senescence (Harman, 1956). As a caution to establish such a balance, Zalmanov, being a practitioner and influenced from last fashion in physiology of that time — microcirculation studies of Danish scientist August Krogh — has recommended activation of microcirculation (“capillary wash”) by means of well-known inducer of arterial hyperemia — turpentine oil. The Zalmanov’s turpentine baths became popular method of vital tonus support and even pretended to facilitate rejuvenation, at least for skin. It is worth to mention, that activation of microcirculation in thyroid, achieved by Zalmanov’s method, could improve its function in geriatric patients. A.S. Zalmanov was the private Kremlin doctor of Soviet leader V.I. Lenin. Even after emigration to France, later occupied by Nazi, Zalmanov kept Soviet citizenship. World fame came to him, when in 1958 he has broadly published a geriatric book with description of his concept and method: “Secrets and Wisdom of Human Body”. The interpretation of senescence and degeneration of living tissues as a result of broadly understood “undernourishment” or “chronic partial starvation” (including not only substrate, but also oxygen deficiency) was deeply rooted in domestic gerontology, beginning from Zalmanov’s

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