One last thing...

"you can live to be 120 years old"

Marco Visscher | January 2005 issue

Why 120?
“Every animal species has an age limit. Jeanne Calment died in 1997 at age 122. If one person can do it, so can others. Moreover, it has been proven in hundreds of simple studies that animals live at least 50 percent longer with marginal adjustments to their living conditions. It’s clear for nearly all species that they’ll live a whole lot longer if they eat 30 percent less food that is of high quality.”

But after the age of 80 you will then spend decades suffering from all kinds of geriatric afflictions.
“Wrong. It is possible to stay in good shape and feel youthful at the age of 100.”

How?
“Don’t smoke, not too much stress, don’t eat too much. Aging can mainly be seen as a process whereby our bodies’ cells are damaged by an overabundance of free radicals [molecules created during oxidation]. You have to find ways to protect yourself against free radicals, such as alphalipoic acid that is directly absorbed in the mitochondria—the energy factories in our cells. Other antioxidants also play a role, as does preventing cell calcification. Supplements aren’t enough, but they are very important.”

Is there scientific proof that we can live longer?
“No double blind study has been done. That is simply unfeasible.”

Hmm. So who’s going to cover all those pension payments?
“No problem. If you remain energetic for longer, you can keep working. But pensions and overpopulation are not my specialty.”

James George Defares (“77 years old and as active as ever”) was a professor of mathematical biology at Leiden university in the Netherlands, and a visiting professor at Stanford and Harvard. He has his own private clinic and is the author of several books on aging and health, published in Dutch.

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