by Lawrence Wilson, MD

LIFE EXTENSION – THE THEORETICAL BASIS

This article is about the theory of life extension. It introduces some rather unusual concepts that are at the heart of the problems of aging. For a much shorter, quick practical guide on the subject, click on Life Extension.

The subject of why some people live much longer than others has interested humanity for thousands of years. The main reasons why people live longer according to the medical profession are things like genetics, medical history and medical care, and perhaps one’s lifestyle and living conditions. This is true to a small degree. However, I find that often the longest living people are those that shun doctors and drugs, so I cannot agree that medical care is always the best route. Let us first examine aging from the perspective of general systems theory.

VICIOUS CYCLES THAT LEAD TO DEATH

In systems theory, one always tries to keep the system in balance or homeostasis. Vicious cycles are downward spirals, in essence, that unbalance the system until it can no longer function. This is a useful model with which to examine aging. Here are some examples:

1. Lack of joy. As people age, they usually do less, look worse, feel worse, have more bodily symptoms, and are therefore less happy and joyful. This tends to predispose them to more problems, which lessens their joy further in a vicious cycle. This is an important factor in aging and death. If it can be reversed, which is not always easy, it extends life greatly.

2. Medical interventions, especially drugs. Clearly, some medical interventions such as emergency surgery extend life. However, the mass drugging of the people today often sets up a vicious cycle that hastens death. Instead of addressing the true causes of disease, which are often related to the diet, toxic metals and toxic chemicals in the body, spinal misalignments, dehydration, hidden infections and other biochemical imbalances, doctors prescribe toxic substances.

Taking these toxic drugs may help one or another symptom. However, they poison the liver and kidneys, and often have other side effects or adverse effects. One may not recognize these, but they always occur to some degree when poisons are put in the body. As a result, often more drugs are given to counteract the fatigue, constipation, reduced sex drive, aches and pains or other adverse effects of the drugs given earlier in life. These further poison and unbalance the body. This forms a vicious cycle that today often shortens the lifespan.

3. Weak digestion. A common denominator of aging is that digestion weakens. As this occurs, the body absorbs fewer nutrients, and this further weakens digestion as the liver, pancreas and all organs related to digestion begin to function even worse. This sets up a vicious cycle that often leads to death. It is made worse by a common lack of hunger as one ages, low digestive enzyme production, lack of energy or desire to prepare good meals, and inability to chew properly in some cases.

4. Low body temperature. This is a very important vicious cycle. As one ages, often the adrenal and thyroid glands, which largely help maintain the body temperature, become underactive. This lowers the body temperature a degree or two, which, in turn, impairs proper enzyme functioning in the body and weakens the immune response. This, in turn, often leads to even more weakness and a lower body temperature, which further worsens enzymatic and metabolic activity in the body, leading eventually to infections, cancers, yeast problems and a host of others that hasten death.

TO BE CONTINUED

THE MAIN CAUSES OF AGING AMONG THE DEVELOPED PEOPLE OF THE EARTH

1. Stress. This is a very important factor and encompasses all sorts of stresses and strains on the body, emotions, mind and even spirit. These use up nutrients in the body, encourage the absorption of toxic metals and some toxic chemicals, tire a person out, and generally deplete one’s physical, emotional and mental energy. It is a critical factor in the lives of some people, particularly those in high-stress jobs or difficult lifestyles, and perhaps those who are very poor, or living under oppressive physical or emotional conditions.

2. Nutritional imbalances and deficiencies. Nutritional deficiencies and frank malnutrition are major causes of shortened life spans on earth today. This affects Americans as well as those who live in undeveloped nations with not enough to eat. The effects of malnutrition and subtle deficiencies are so complex that it is not possible to discuss them all, or even most of them. However, nutrients, especially minerals, are required for thousands of essential enzyme systems, to rebuild all the body parts, for the brain, nervous system, digestive system and every other system of the body.

Many older people, especially, die of malnutrition, though the cause of death may be listed as a heart attack, stroke, cancer or some other disease. As one ages, digestion weakens and often the diet is not as good. So the person gradually develops more and more nutritional deficiencies until death intervenes.

3. Toxicity. Toxicity includes toxic metals, toxic chemicals, radiation toxicity, electrical and electromagnetic toxicity, and biological toxins. The latter refers to infectious and toxic organisms that proliferate as one gets older, in particular, and cannot be controlled or eliminated easily. They include many viruses, and some bacteria and parasites, in particular.

Toxins are everywhere in our environment, especially if one does not eat a pure diet and drink pure water. Air pollution is another source, as are contact sources of toxins such as mercury-laden dental amalgams, and plastics, solvents and other chemicals that we use daily and absorb through the skin and other routes.

The presence of excessive toxins in the body is directly related to all illnesses and death. This is sadly not recognized by modern allopathic medical care. Oriental medicine and older systems of Western medicine such as traditional naturopathy paid much more attention to this factor of aging. Toxicity is sometimes easy to see on a hair mineral analysis, but not always. I just assume everyone has some toxic metals today because it appears to be the truth. The same is true of toxic chemicals, radiation toxicity and biological toxicity or chronic infections.

Another factor related to toxicity and aging is that when the correct minerals are not present, specifically, one absorbs and uses more toxic metals and even some toxic chemicals, perhaps, to keep the enzymes of the body functioning at some level to maintain life. This is called the theory of preferred minerals, and is the truth, even if it is not yet accepted by the medical and psychological professions. It is discussed in separate articles on this website and in the textbook, Nutritional Balancing And Hair Mineral Analysis.

4. Residual etheric energy. This is another name for vitality, life force or simply adaptive energy. The latter term was coined by Hans Selye, MD, a brilliant physician who originated the stress theory of disease.

The life force or vitality of a person is a complex phenomenon that involves one’s age, one’s overall health status, one’s diet, and perhaps other factors. However, age is a major factor. See the article entitled Anti-Aging And Etheric Resetting for more on this topic.

While not always the case, the effect upon aging of the etheric residual energy can be even more potent than one’s nutritional status. One rather simple reason for this is that one’s etheric residual determines how well a person can absorb nutrients and expel toxins. It also determines how well the body synthesizes new proteins from DNA, and the pace of protein synthesis and genetic restoration of the body. If there is little etheric energy or vitality present, nutrition declines and toxicity increases fast. This is what happens to everyone at the end of their life.

5. Psychological factors, such as the desire and will to live. There are many psychological aspects to aging. For example, when all of your friends are dead, and your children are gone, some people simply don’t want to live any more. When you are forced to retire from your job and your spouse is suffering horribly with an illness or from an accident, some people do not want to live any more. Other things can trigger a desire to die, such as pain in the body, disability, and more. This is an important factor in some cases.

NUTRITIONAL BALANCING SCIENCE AS A LIFE-EXTENSION METHOD

I have worked with numerous cases in which a person was given a short time to live, and this was altered through the use of a nutritional balancing program. This article will detail how nutritional balancing very specifically helps extend one’s lifespan.

BUILDING A BASE FOR HEALING AND LONGEVITY

An important systems concept used in nutritional balancing science, but not in many anti-aging programs, is to build a baseline level of health or foundation in order to allow a longer life. This is also not discussed enough among anti-aging medical specialists. This base can be built at any age, and must be maintained always. It is one of the ways that nutritional balancing science differs from what may be called the symptomatic anti-aging strategies. These focus on specific causes of aging, such as a weak heart, arterial or kidney damage, mitochondrial damage, preventing diabetes, cancer or dementia, or others.

The concept of building a base or foundation is much more focused on the entire body and its health. The reason for it is that even if one does not have diabetes, cancer or heart disease, for example, one can succumb to any number of other causes of death and disability. These range from accidents to parasitic infections to malnutrition to hidden aneurisms, for example. Only by building a strong foundation of health through proper nutrition, remineralizing the body, balancing the body, removing many or all the toxic metals, removing hundreds or thousands of toxic chemicals, eradicating dozens of chronic infections, and balancing the mind can one be more assured of a long and healthy life.

RESTORING NUTRIENTS

The first and simplest way to extend one’s life today is to improve the nutritional status of the body. Most people die of malnutrition, not old age. This is a very important principle. It may appear that they die of various diseases or other factors, but an underlying component of most ailments of old age is impaired nutrition. This occurs for a number of reasons. As one ages, especially after the age of about 55 to 60:

· Digestive strength declines, so one does not absorb one’s food as well. In part this is due to lower digestive enzyme secretion, but other factors may play a role as well.

· Some people are less able to chew well due to problems with the teeth, and this reduces nutrition as well.

· Some lose their appetite and eat much less after this age.

· Some are less able to prepare meals for themselves, especially after the death of a spouse, for example.

· The body’s subtle or etheric energy level declines. This factor is also called adaptive energy or vitality. Lowered vitality prevents proper absorption and utilization of food.

· By this time, many, if not most people are taking various medical or over-the-counter drugs for various reasons. Many of these interfere with nutrition via a dozen or more mechanisms. For example, acid-blockers used for GERD (gastric reflux disease) interfere with stomach acid production. Other drugs and over-the-counter remedies such as pain killers irritate the stomach lining. Still others actually destroy nutrients such as vitamin C or antagonize various other nutrients.

· By this age, many people have lost some of their interest in living. This often causes people to eat less well.

Nutritional balancing not only restores nutrients through a better diet and nutritional supplementation. It also will greatly enhance digestive power through the use of GB-3, a powerful digestive enzyme, and improving general vitality.

REDUCING TOXINS IN THE BODY

Another reason that everyone ages and eventually dies is the accumulation of toxic substances in the body. These consist of about two dozen toxic metals and hundreds of toxic chemicals that everyone is exposed to on a daily basis.

Toxic metals are less preferred minerals. An interesting way to view the accumulation of toxic metals in the body, and perhaps even some toxic chemicals, is that they replace the correct of physiological minerals in thousands of enzyme binding sites in the body.

An analogy can be helpful. As we age, a process occurs that is somewhat like the replacement of the original factory parts in your car with inferior replacement parts. When you get low in zinc, for example, the body begins to absorb cadmium and lead, and replaces zinc with these inferior “parts”. When you have too many of these inferior parts in your “vehicle” it begins to age and die. As you remove the inferior replacement parts (the toxic metals in the binding sites) and replace them with factory original parts, you can extend the life of your “vehicle”.

Nutritional balancing can accomplish this replacement and repair process better than any other nutritional science I have encountered. It is not sufficient to just chelate out the toxic metals and fill your body with good minerals. In fact, this method does not work. Instead, it is a slow, gentle process of continuously balancing body chemistry while supplying the exact amounts of the vital minerals that the body needs at that time that accomplishes the process. Giving too much of even a vital mineral such as selenium or zinc can easily upset the balance of the minerals and stop the process.

All chelating methods tend to pull toxic metals out in an unnatural order, and all of the methods I’ve encountered remove some good minerals along with the bad ones. The chelating agents simply cannot distinguish between some vital minerals or forms of minerals, and some toxic ones. For this reason, chelation is not used in nutritional balancing and we recommend staying away from it. It also does not seem able to replace certain toxic metals at deep enough levels, as occurs regularly with nutritional balancing.

Autointoxication adds to toxicity as one ages. Another phenomenon becomes extremely important as one reaches middle age. Autointoxication is an older medical term that is often denigrated by medical professionals, when it should be a focus in dealing with elderly people. Basically, it means that a number of very toxic substances are generated inside the body that are not removed. Reasons why it begins to occur faster and faster with age include impaired circulation and oxygenation, reduced enzyme activity, often more constipation, and most importantly, impaired digestion.

Constipation often become worse with age, as the adrenal glands and thyroid gland become less active and more toxic and depleted. Oxygenation and circulation also decrease due to reduced physical activity and other factors.

However, the single most important reason for it is weakened digestion as one ages. This causes more of one’s food to ferment and/or putrefy, instead of digesting properly. Fermentation and putrefaction are other ways to break down the food. However, these processes impair normal nutrient absorption, and result in the formation of highly toxic chemicals. These include cadverine, indols, skatols, alcohol, ammonia, acetaldehyde and others.

These chemicals are absorbed first into the liver, where they poison the liver. Eventually they poison all the organs. This added toxicity also begins to overwhelm the body’s ability to detoxify all types of poisons as well, causing a downhill slide toward death. No amount of vitamins, chelation or anything else can stop this process except removing the cause.

Nutritional balancing focuses heavily on this problem of aging using: 1) digestive enzymes to assist digestion and reduce putrefaction and fermentation, 2) a much improved diet that is far easier for the body to handle, 3) reduction of toxins in the diet and lifestyle, 4) the use of GB-3, a product with bile acids and pancreatin, for solving the constipation problem, 5) coffee enemas to clean the colon, 6) sauna therapy to assist the skin and other organs of detoxification, and 7) other methods to support the eliminative and digestive organs by balancing the oxidation rate, giving needed nutrients and more.

CHRONIC INFECTIONS AND AGING

Everyone, in my experience, has some chronic infections. These often date back many years and most cause few if any symptoms. However, they slowly deplete one’s energy and vitality. They do not respond to antibiotics or anti-viral drugs, as a rule, and, in fact, the overuse of antibiotics is often one cause for them. Taking antibiotics kills most of the germs in an area of the body, but a few hardy ones survive. Since the toxic terrain that the germs thrive upon is not addressed by the drugs, which are toxins themselves, the germs remain in a dormant state, often for years. They may or may not cause minor symptoms.

As one ages, the number of these infections tends to increase. They can be of any type such as viral, bacterial or fungal. Parasitic infestations may also increase. Also, with age, the body’s ability to contain them and control them decreases. As a result, they can become major factors in aging, disease and ultimately death.

Very common sites of these infections include the teeth, gums, ears, throat, bronchial tubes, lungs, eyes, digestive tract and elsewhere. Most people, we find, have some minor, nagging symptoms that are caused by these infections. These include post-nasal drip, ringing in the ears or some hearing loss, tooth sensitivity or periodontal problems, aches and pains anywhere in the body, a slight cough, or other symptoms.

Nutritional balancing science is superb for removing these infections at their cause. By balancing body chemistry, removing toxic substances from the body at deep levels and renourishing the body, these infections often flare up for a few hours, days or even weeks, and then the infection is gone. These episodes are called healing reactions or purification reactions, and are a regular occurrence during nutritional balancing programs.

CANCER DEVELOPMENT AND AGING

The following will sound controversial. However, I believe most people have some cancer cells floating around the body all the time. They cannot be diagnosed at this time simply because the methods used to diagnose cancer are not sensitive enough to detect them at this stage. However, these cells, which are often trophoblasts, expel toxic material that contributes to autointoxication and general toxicity and weakness of the body.

It is well known that cancer cells subsist on sugars or what is called an anerobic metabolism. They are somewhat similar to yeasts in this regard, which also produce toxic chemicals in our bodies. This adds to the burden of general toxicity and furthers the aging and dying process. Nutritional balancing can help reduce the number of these cells in the body, thus reducing another source of toxicity.

In addition, some people have actual tumor masses that are hidden from view and escape medical detection. This is not uncommon at all. It is simply difficult to find some cancers early because they are hidden deep inside the liver, the kidneys, the brain or elsewhere. While nutritional balancing is not a cancer therapy, it can and does help slow or even stop and reverse the growth of these latent or hidden cancers in some people. This is much more the case if a person will use a near infrared sauna on a daily basis, preferably several times daily, and do one or two coffee enemas daily.

YIN AND AGING

Acupuncturists know that as the body ages, it becomes more yin. This means cold in acupuncture terms, and generally more toxic and sluggish. While this is not a subject discussed in Western medicine, it is an important consideration.

In hair analysis interpretation, yin corresponds to a much slower oxidation or metabolic rate, and often a calcium shell pattern or a four lows mineral pattern. These patterns are associated with all of the diseases of aging such as cardiac problems, cancer, diabetes, arthritis and others.

The process of becoming more yin is, in part, due to reduced vitality. This is discussed below. However, it is also due, in part, to one’s diet, lifestyle, toxicity level, infections in the body, cancer in the body, and other factors. These can be reversed to some degree, and this is a prominent goal of nutritional balancing science. In this way, the body can be maintained in a more yang condition, which will extend life significantly in some cases.

VITALITY AND ETHERIC STRENGTH

Another reason everyone eventually ages and dies is reduced vitality or adaptive energy. The subject of enhancing vitality or adaptive energy is not a focus of the medical profession, but it should be. One reason is they do not have a reliable way to measure it.

In contrast, nutritional balancing science provides a rather simple way to measure vitality based on one’s metabolic type. Dr. Hans Selye, MD, discovered almost 100 years ago that animals, when stressed over a period of time, pass through what he called three stages of stress before they die. He called these the alarm, resistance and exhaustion stages of stress. These, and more variations, can be assessed many times from a hair mineral analysis that has been performed and interpreted correctly.

Components of vitality. Vitality appears to have a number of components:

· Vitality one is born with. This is like a bank account that one is born with that is slowly used up over time. Traumas, disease, malnutrition and other things may use up the bank account faster, while better living and eating habits may slow the depletion of the vitality one was born with.

· Vital force or etheric energy that one absorbs by being alive. In other words, this energy is all around us, and a properly balanced body can absorb some of it naturally. Methods also exist to increase the body’s ability to absorb this energy. This involves Downward Motion Of Energy, deeper breathing, better nutrition, and such things as releasing tension in the body and opening the joints a little bit.

There is little we can do to increase the amount of etheric energy or vitality that one is born with. However, we can do a lot to increase the body’s ability to absorb etheric energy from one’s environment. This is a prime focus of nutritional balancing science involving eating a better diet, sleeping and resting more, some exercise, meditation and other aspects of the program. Balancing yin and yang forces in the body by balancing the vital mineral ratios is another part of this process. In the past, people have used deep breathing, vegetarian diets and other methods for this purpose, but these do not work today, in my experience.

While not always the case, the effect of increasing etheric energy is quite a bit more potent than even one’s nutritional status. A simple reason for this is that one’s etheric energy, adaptive energy or vitality determines how well a person can absorb nutrients and expel toxins. If there is little etheric energy or vitality present, nutrition declines and toxicity increases fast. This is what happens to everyone at the end of their life. For more on this subject, read Vitality on this website.

SAFETY

Another reason many people age and die early is through accidents, injuries, surgical errors and careless mishaps that damage the body structure and the internal organs.

This is a relatively simple factor, but one that is not stressed enough, in my view. For example, simple accidents and falls can cause serious derangements of the body structure, not to mention breaking bones, which become more brittle with age. One’s reflexes also begin to slow, and one’s muscles and all body structures tend to weaken and become more fragile. More attention should be focused on living a safe lifestyle at all ages, but particularly as one reaches the age of 50 and above.

PSYCHOLOGY OF AGING AND DEATH

The psychology of aging is an important topic. By this I simply mean the expectation that many people have that as they grow older and reach a certain age, regardless of their health status, they will get ready to die. While this may not seem important, it is an important factor for millions of people around the world.

In some cases, one’s father or mother died or became very ill at this age, so one can “expect” the same fate. In other cases, doctors are to blame for this psychology. I call this Medical Disease, and have written an important article about it. It literally kills people.

In a time of rapid technological change, some older people feel left behind and out of touch with new technologies such as computers, video games or devices like cell phones and Ipads. They falsely believe that the young people are smarter than they are because they know how to use the new technologies. This also contributes to a death psychology in some older people.

In other cases, as one ages and one is less capable of working, the person feels like a burden to their family and to society. As our governments are going bankrupt, they can subtly or overtly inform the people that at certain age they should “get out of the way” to make room for the younger generation.

In some cases, as a person ages, he sees his friends and family members dying off. This can make only lonely and have a negative effect on one’s health.

In still other cases, a person who is older just doesn’t like all the change in society, even if some of it is for the better. Many get caught in their past, trying to bring back the “good old days”, even when they weren’t that good, in reality. All of the above contributes to a psychology of dying that can take over the mind of a person who reaches “retirement age”, or some other arbitrary age or time in life.

LEARNING LESSONS AND LIFE EXTENSION

According to some teachers, each of us is born with desires to learn various lessons or have particular experiences while on this planet. Once we have had these experiences, which can be just about anything, we basically decide to leave this planet.

However, a potent reason why this occurs is that our bodies can only handle so much stress. By the time we have “finished our business” here, such as raising one’s children, working for 50 years in a difficult or boring job, dealing with difficult relationships, or something else, our bodies are often quite worn out. Therefore, death actually seems like an attractive alternative. For this reason, many people do not fight back against the diseases and other problems of aging the way younger people do.

If the nutrition, lifestyle, toxicity, infections and vitality issues are addressed, we find, most people start to want to live a longer life. This is a subtle factor in aging, but an extremely important one that can be addressed with nutritional balancing science.

DE-AGING OR YOUTHING, AND MENTAL DEVELOPMENT

This is a very unique concept. It means that as certain changes take place within the body and the brain as a result of a nutritional balancing program, usually after a few years on a program, but not necessarily, the body actually starts to reverse the aging process.

The main requirement for this to occur is not nutritional, oddly enough. It is to bring through into the body more etheric energy, as discussed above. This process is hastened by the use of the daily coffee enema, daily near infrared sauna therapy, and the Roy Masters type of meditation. Other meditations will not do it as much, if at all.

As this process proceeds, one may not look younger for a while because the changes begin at very deep levels of the body and work their way outward. The last thing to change is your physical appearance in some cases, though some people definitely report that they do look and feel somewhat younger.

During mental development, which is discussed in several other articles on this website, one may even feel worse for a while as deep healing proceeds. However, over time, one will notice more flexibility, more energy, fewer health symptoms, fewer wrinkles and so on.

This, in fact, is just the beginning of life extension through a nutritional balancing program. After a longer period on the program, perhaps 10 years or so, other mechanisms go into effect thanks to renourishing and strengthening the body. These are aided greatly by doing the Roy Masters meditation daily, with my modifications. When this occurs, the lifespan can be increased far more, in fact. This is the start of a wonderful process of rejuvenating the body by what may be called esoteric means. However, it all starts and depends on continuing on a simple nutritional balancing regimen for years, usually, to undo toxic metal poisoning at the deepest layers and to rebalance the body in many ways. Chiropractic is also needed, as is plenty of rest and sleep and the other modalities I suggest.

CONCLUSION

Aging and life extension are far more complex than one’s genetics, and how much medical care is “delivered”. In fact, more medical care today often shortens people’s lives because it means more toxic drugs and toxic surgeries. Life extension usually has more to do with nutrition, lifestyle, vitality, removing infections, and dealing with more subtle factors such as the desire to live a long and healthy life.

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