Ambrosia for Aging?

Ambrosia ( an old Greek food or drink for the gods),"Elixir of life" is

an old oriental theme, and the "fountain of youth", all prove the permenant obsession of fear of altered body composition, skin changes, lessened cognition, low sex drive..etc.,of other features accompanying aging, as well as the old dream of permenant youth. Ambrosia and the similar

acquire the shape (in people's minds) of a single magic formula that keeps one in his best optimal healthy condition.



Aging is a complex and poorly understood process that is unlikely to be solved by only a single drug. The last decade research proved that the use of a single (ambrosia) molecule doesn't give answers to the question of delayed aging, and here are some examples:



1- The nervous (ambrosia), Melatonin alone did not prove much

improvement in preventing aging.

2- The hormonal (ambrosia), Growth hormone used alone in adults to delay aging caused those who administered it to stay longer periods of intensive care and hospitalization than those received placebos. There was increased mortality with high doses of Growth hormone.

3- The enzymic (ambrosia), Sirtuin alone proved to increase the number of cell divisions of a cell but not to increase its life-span (to prevent its aging).

4- The beverage (ambrosia), Reservaretol present in red wine alone proved to increase Sirtuin activity, but not yet proved effects on aging.



It is difficult for one (ambrosia) molecule to influence all the body activities that are served by a huge number of biochemical reactions under the complicated interconnected control of both the NERVOUS&HORMONAL systems, and the effects of both systems are mediated through enzymes.



If the body is represented by a factory, its (head) office is the Central Nervous System(CNS) and the executive secretaries are the Hypothalamus and the Spinal Cord, and all are responsible for the flow of in- and out-orders in the human factory, by making and transmitting the demands and the responce to them.



Hormones deals with the store-house and its "inventory", holding the keys of the store of raw and fabricated materials. In executing their jobs, hormones obey (legal) rules that can't be changed by any one, these are:



* Store-house is distributed all over the whole body and contains the macromolecules (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins), each of them can lead to formation of the other and they are in actual exchange all the time (Even bone-caclium is exchanged between bone and blood).

* No one door is allowed to open separately, and each hormone holds a set of keys that open many doors simultaneously.

* No one store can be depleted at a time and the requested material is obtained from many stores, so as to keep on a certain inventory.

* Sometimes, the number of doors needed to be opened requires the

action of more than one hormone.



Optimal healthy state of the the body depends on the harmony between the type of hormonal orchestra and the responding tissue, for example:

From birth to puberty, the predominant playing orchestra is composed of Growth, Thyroid, and Sex hormones and the tissues are highly responsive through more active forms of enzymes (isoenzymes), at puberty Sex hormones takes the lead, there after, Growth and Sex hormones begin to decline and corticosteroids begin to be common according to the many stressful conditions one meets in his life, while the juvenile hormones decline goes on, the body tissues acquire a new responsive condition- under whatever effects - so that they can be harmonized with the new set of predominting( unpredominating?) hormones.



To rejuvenate the nerves themselves and not to affect their function we have to deal only with its insulating sheath as well as their chemical transmitters through rich supply of the nutrients needed for both jobs, and this can be achieved by selectively increasing some micro- and macro-nutrients.



To deal with hormones, the only alternative we have now is to adapt the macromolecules to the new hormonal balance, untill we better understand the relation between responce of the cells to different hormonal orchestration.



To discuss if we can make our human ambrosia to fight aging, I need to put my notions in another article, so please stay tuned.