Another Way to Extend Life?

There are many scientific approaches to extending healthful life, few if any having been reported on by the media. In future editions we will detail them.

One pathway that has not been examined widely except in Russia, is that of temperature. Are warmer climates healthier than cold? Or vice versa?

As Ph.D.'s Folkis and Muradian, both of the Institute of Gerontology in Kiev, following the work of Michnikov, who was among the first in the in the scientific examination of extending life span, noted that some wild promises have been made in the past.

They observed that in the late l960's Rand Corporation (a "think tank" here) predicted that in 2020 we would be extending our lives by 50 years. The drug company Smith-Kline & French (now Smith-Kline Beecham) unabashedly forecast that it would happen by the mid-l990's. The Russian gerontologists also overshot the mark by a wide margin.

Folkis and Muradian summarized much scientific discovery since then in arriving at certain evident factors. They include DNA repair, antioxidants, the activation of certain metabolic pathways and the maintenance of stable internal temperature.

The two scientists observe that as we age, our bodies become less flexible in adapting to external temperature change. Thus death may occur in elderly people in cold seasons. It is not the cold per se that is the problem, but the aged body's failure to adapt to it and maintain their own temperature stability. In fact, reducing body temperature is often helpful in certain diseases, i.e., cirrhosis, trauma, thrombosis and poisonings.

The failure to adapt to heat is just as dangerous to the elderly, the scientists say. A problem may develop not so much with older people going South, but with their subsequent trips to offspring in the North.

Another Way to Extend Life? Bibliography

Life Span Prolongation, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Fl. Folkis and Muradian, both of the Institute of Gerontology in Kiev, following the work of Michnikov