Aging is a certainty, but how fast it happens depends on sleep, green vegetables and oxygen. Aging happens with the shortening of telomeres, which are sequences of DNA that cover the ends of chromosomes in cells and protect them from damage. When these protective sheaths become too short, cells die. A lack of oxygen to the cells, caused by chemicals, smoking, or obesity all accelerate aging. A study of over 1000 women aged from 18 to 76 years at St Thomas hospital in London found telomeres of obese women to be nine times shorter than those of leaner women. Those who smoked had shorter telomeres by the equivalent of five years of aging. However, there are ways of slowing or reversing aging. Anti-aging doctors have discovered that when Human Growth Hormone (hGH) levels are restored from the pituitary gland in the brain, patients begin to feel and look younger. A Stanford University School of Medicine survey additionally found that the application of hGH on healthy elderly patients sharply increased muscle and decreased body fat. Much of this hormone is generated during the middle and late stages of sleep, making sleep one of the prime remedies for aging - an advantage in Kenya, where sleep comes more easily due to the stimulation of the sleep regulator melatonin by the sunlight. Some foods can help too. A nutrient found in leafy green vegetables, such as barley grass, spinach, kale or “sukumawiki”, called SOD (superoxide dismutase), has been found to be a powerful 'anti-aging' antioxidant, counteracting the effects of oxidants and free radicals in reducing oxygen supplies to cells. Increased amounts of SOD cause bodies to repair themselves more quickly, and act as an anti inflammatory and a preventer of cancer. So, back to the vegetables.
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East Africans may shine in 60 per cent of the world's distance running events, but they are not strong sprinters. And there's a reason. The current Kenyan record for 100 metres is 10.28 seconds, against a world record of 9.69 seconds, hailing from Jamaica. Many athletes who excel in short distant races, but perform poorly in endurance races are of West African origin, says the Sports Science Peak Performance Newsletter. Training, diet, and the environment play a role in this. But according to Director of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Centre, Bengt Saltin, the environment a runner comes from accounts for 20 to 25 per cent of performance, while genetics play a much bigger role. In terms of genetics, most East African athletes have been found to be ectomorphs, of short stature and slender with a huge lung capacity but generally slow-twitch muscles, vital for sports endurance. Athletes of West African ancestry are mesomorphs, reasonably tall with well muscular limbs and torso, making them perfect for explosive events like sprinting. Studies also found them to posses smaller but efficient lungs in comparison to those from East Africa. Other athletes such as Caucasians were found to fall between ectomorphs and mesomorphs. They have upper body strength, making them suitable for events like weightlifting and field events. Asians were found to be similar, only smaller, with a more ectomorphic build allowing them to excel in events where flexibility is important such as gymnastics. Apart from body types, hemoglobin also determines whether athletes excel in sprints or long distant races. Athletes from low oxygen regions assimilate oxygen better and thus tend to have increased levels of hemoglobin. This is the case for few West African and Caucasian athletes. But athletes native to areas of high altitude such as East Africa, Bolivia, and Korea have been found to possess greater levels of hemoglobin in their blood. This gives them a greater aerobic capacity, enabling them to excel in endurance events. However, sprinting and football require anaerobic bursts of speed, for which athletes from low altitude areas are more suited. |
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A third of adults suffer from insomnia at some point of their lives. But going without sleep quickly brings the body down. Princeton University researchers found that sleep deprivation increases Corticosterone, a stress hormone, and causes memory loss. It may also see the hormones that control appetite get out of balance. A recent study showed that people who sleep five hours a night are 73 per cent more likely to become obese than those who sleep seven to nine hours. A slack of sleep has also been found to increase the chances of acquiring chronic diseases. Women who sleep less than five hours a night are almost 50 per cent more likely to have heart problems than women who sleep for eight hours, researchers of the Archives of Internal Medicine found. While, in a Lancet study, after 11 healthy men slept for four hours a night, their insulin and blood sugar levels rose to the same levels as people on the verge of diabetes, after just six days. Conversely, sound sleep can improve the learning of a motor skill by 20 per cent, found Harvard University researchers. However, Kenyans get better sleep than the norm, thanks to the nation's ample sunlight. Melatonin, a hormone produced in the brain's pineal gland helps regulate sleep cycles. It is found in vegetables and meat. Melatonin supplements have also been used to treat jet lag or sleep problems (insomnia), although not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But researchers have found out that a lot of sunlight helps builds up melatonin, making for better sleep all round. Experts say newborns should sleep 16 to 18 hours a day and school children for between 10 and 12 hours. Teenagers need at least nine hours of sleep, while for adults, seven to eight hours a night is optimum. |
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Oxygen is the single most important element of human health, providing 90 percent of our nutritional needs, compared with just 10 per cent from food and water. Medics’ recommend routine deep oxygen breathing to boost immunity, cleanse the respiratory system, detoxify blood and prevent cancer. Dr Otto Warburg a Nobel Prize winning physicist said that cancer can’t thrive in properly oxygenated body cells. But eating foods high in calories, fats and sugars, clogs the bloodstream with chemicals that allow cancerous cells and tumors to thrive by hindering oxygen delivery. That’s why physical fitness exercises are a must for proper blood-oxygen circulation. Research by University of South Carolina on 14,000 women aged 20 to 83 with no prior cancer history concluded that those with high fitness levels had low chances of getting cancer, diabetes or cardiovascular maladies. Those with low fitness levels were three times more likely to die of cancer. As such research results build up, oxygen therapy is now becoming common place, infusing oxygen into the body through pills, bars or machines. It’s recommended to heart, asthma and lung cancer sufferers to aid ravaged lungs in respiration. Skin revitalization, age countering, stable nervous system, healthy metabolism, migraine remedy, mental clarity at work, and reduced lactic acid build up are other secondary benefits of oxygen. In industrialized countries, oxygen levels are down by 50 per cent due to pollution and depletion of the ecosystem, according to The Guardian’s Peter Tatchell. China, USA and Mexico have some of the most polluted atmospheres, which in turn make the oxygen there impure for breathing. Oxygen depletion is also endemic in Kenya, with 80 per cent of Kenyans using biomass as an energy source, affecting two thirds of our atmosphere, according to the Ministry of Energy. |
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