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Explain different means of extending your life through diet, exercise and anti-ageing ideas
Das E-Book Live longer, extend your life wird angeboten von Geddes and Grosset und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:
Ageing, Health, Nutrition and health in later life
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It is now a certainty that the effects of global warming and climate change will alter the face of the planet and have profound and unpredictable consequences both for its human inhabitants and for animals and plants. The changes will affect the places where people can live, the food that they can grow and eat and the diseases to which they are exposed. It seems likely that the wealthy nations, while not escaping the effects of climate change, will be better placed to try and offset them. However, without very radical changes, the struggle for daily survival seems likely to remain the main priority for the world’s most disadvantaged citizens and the effects of global warming will be felt most keenly in the countries where they live.
In Western countries, life has changed dramatically in the last half century since the end of the Second World War and most of the changes have resulted in huge improvements in the quality of human life. The majority of people in Western countries have long since moved beyond the struggle for the basic provision of food, water, shelter and clothing. They enjoy a high standard of living, have access to an enormous variety of foodstuffs from all over the world and benefit from advanced medical and health care. Increased wealth and leisure time mean that most Western people have access to computers, the Internet and other advanced technology and are readily able to become well-informed about matters that affect and interest them.
Advances in medicine and science already mean that successful treatments are now being used against some of the major killer diseases of the past. Some of the conditions and illnesses that are being treated are associated with ageing. In many cases, these treatments are able to restore a quality of life and health that was simply unavailable to people in earlier generations. Other developments in medical science, especially in the field of genetics, have raised the possibility of eliminating some serious disorders altogether while others are aimed at directly tackling the ageing process itself and slowing down its progression. A few scientists have even gone as far as to predict that future research will eventually enable ageing to be ‘written out’ of the human genome altogether! Of course, people have always been interested in leading a long, healthy and active life but in the past, the means of doing so was often beyond individual control and governed entirely by circumstances. Now, new medical developments and scientific breakthroughs, that are usually widely reported and discussed in the media, are factors that have raised the level of interest in the subject of longevity and achieving a healthy and active old age. People in the West have come to expect that when these advances become available they will have access to them and directly benefit from them.
A second important factor in recent years has been the enormous growth of interest in so-called ‘alternative’ therapies and philosophies. Most of these claim to promote good health and longevity by giving advice on essential aspects of life such as diet, exercise and lifestyle management, and ways of preventing disease. Both disease prevention and treatment of ailments are based upon natural remedies, usually derived from plants and herbs. However, alternative philosophies are even more wide-ranging, being concerned with the emotional and spiritual aspects of life in addition to dealing with the body and physical factors. Conventional medicine used to be almost exclusively concerned with the treatment of disease and this obviously remains its most important function. However, in recent years, the medical profession as a whole has become far more involved with disease prevention and with the essential factors listed above, i.e. diet, the need for exercise and management of modern lifestyles. These factors, especially diet and nutrition, have become industries in themselves and ones in which the desire to make large profits at times conflicts with more altruistic motives!
The purpose of this book is to attempt to draw all these threads together. It is hoped that ways in which an ordinary person can influence his or her own life span and health will be discovered, by examining the essential aspects of life, both physical, emotional and spiritual, and looking at the advice offered by medicine, science and alternative therapies. New developments and their implications for individual people are looked at and discussed. Some of the more controversial ‘treatments’ for ageing such as hormonal anti-ageing programmes are included, and their potential dangers as well as possible benefits are examined.
Both maternal and infant mortality were higher during the early years of the 20th century. Fewer births took place in hospital and advanced medical and surgical techniques were not, in any case, available. This meant that childbirth was a far more hazardous event for women than is the case today when maternal deaths are very rare. Sadly, even the advanced obstetric and neonatal care that is available in modern maternity units cannot prevent the loss of some babies at, or soon after, birth. However, it is certain that many more of these infants are saved, including some that are very premature or born with serious, life-threatening conditions, than were in the past. Hence, although the process of birth remains one of the most dangerous periods in any woman’s life, it is safer in the 21st century than at any time previously!
Babies and young children are vulnerable to infections because they have an immature immune system. In the early 1900s, many children were left damaged or even died from common infectious diseases such as scarlet fever, poliomyelitis, diphtheria, measles and smallpox. A combination of vaccination and antibiotics effectively protects the children of today against these formerly dreaded diseases and smallpox has apparently been eradicated completely.
In the early 20th century, industrial and domestic processes were heavily reliant upon coal as the major source of fuel. Air quality in the larger cities was often poor and some, including London, were regularly affected by choking smog. Respiratory and other industrial illnesses were commonplace and resulted from dirty working conditions and polluted air. These illnesses were a major cause of disability and premature death and although the dangers were recognized, it took many years for the situation to improve through the implementation of ‘clean air’ Acts and measures to protect people in their place of work. In 21st century Britain, the dirty air from the old, heavy industries is a thing of the past but it has been replaced by new, invisible hazards.
In fact, these improvements have probably had the greatest impact on the overall longevity of people in Britain. In some deprived inner city areas, where poverty, poor diet and bad housing are still prevalent, life expectancy is lower and people of all ages are more likely to succumb to illness and disease. Such areas of deprivation exist in most Western countries, echoing conditions that were formerly more widespread and show the significance to health and longevity of simple factors that can readily be changed.
In summary, people in 21st century Britain can expect to live longer and enjoy a better quality of life than their forebears of 100 years ago. Increased life expectancy has been achieved through improvements in the environment, nutrition and in health and medical care. However, environmental pollution, although of a different kind to that which prevailed a century ago, continues to threaten health and life expectancy, particularly through the incidence of cancer. It is known that many cancers have an environmental basis although the cause in any individual case often remains obscure. One in three people in modern Britain will contract a form of cancer at some stage in their lifetime, but the good news is that more people now are living for longer with the disease or surviving it completely, than in the past. This has been brought about by greatly improved surgical and medical treatments for the disease with new developments continually being made. Equally exciting is the research being carried out into the changes or mutations in cells that enable a cancer to grow. Scientists believe that they are close to understanding these key changes for several forms of cancer, holding out the hope that in the 21st century it will become possible to halt or reverse them and hence effect a cure.
Several diseases, including many cancers, are related to the process of ageing, i.e. they are more likely to affect people as they grow older. On the positive side is the fact that there are very many ways in which a person living today can reduce his or her chances of being affected. Not only is this the case but existing knowledge at this point in the 21st century also suggests that there are ways in which an individual can challenge the ageing process itself. Before considering these strategies, it is helpful to look at the possible causes of ageing. It has to be said that there are many scientific theories about this but those that are most widely accepted are described below.