The Perfect Specimen

Despite reports that the human race is still getting fitter, stronger, and longer lived .... 

The Perfect Specimen

...... a study by Paris's Descartes University has suggested that actually all the trends of the last few centuries may have peaked, and that we have just about reached the limits of human lifespans, height, and physical performance have been reached and we are actually now at the start of the decline.

But no need to worry, the tech giants are here to help you .... Amazons Alexa the smart assistant will soon be analysing your health via your faecal matter in the toilet bowl ... Poo Sticks anyone? A futurist has predicted that just about everything will be smart in 50 years time .... from everything that you buy including toilet rolls, to control of your house, will be managed in this manner. God help us if the Klingons ever hack us (to paraphrase an old Star trek toilet joke).

Old age is apparently governed by the bacteria living in our intestines, which not only form about 50 per cent of the total number of cells in our body, but influence how we grow old. Researchers at McGill University in the USA fed fruit flies with a combination of probiotics and herbal supplement called Triphala. This extended the lives of the flies by 60 per cent, and as its sold as a supplement, you too can extend your well being, by means of a daily probiotic drink and Triphala tablet.

On the same theme, researchers at the University of Nottingham and Kings College London have discovered that a low diversity of 'good bacteria' in our digestive systems is linked to hardening of the arteries and heart diseases. So the message is that we are what we eat, but we are also what we can digest well.

Finally, if you want to stay in the pink, an hour a day of exercise in short bursts, can slash the odds of dying early by 57 per cent. If you can manage 100 minutes worth of short energetic bursts, it cuts the odds by 75 per cent. Walk as fast as you can, always take the stairs and a bit of hard stretching with light weights (as long as it raises your heart rate), will apparently do the trick, and actually is better than long gym sessions.

But if you really want do something special to fight ages ravages, the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing reported in March 2018 that cycling holds back ageing. They conducted tests on 125 amateur riders aged 55 to 79, comparing them to a wide age group who are healthy but don't cycle. The cyclists were unsurprisingly found to have preserved their muscle mass and strength, while maintaining stable levels of body fat and cholesterol. The bonus was that they also retained their testosterone levels.

None of this is really surprising, and frankly any regular exercise will get you much the same results - I had to do stretches with weights to stop my scar tissue sticking, and regained much of my upper body muscle mass. However what surprised the study team was that deeper examination showed that the immune systems of the older cyclist subjects were as good as young subjects - their Thymuses were producing as many T-Cells. The Thymus normally starts declining the production of these T-Cells as it starts shrinking from the age of 20.

But we are seeing ever more strange cures for illnesses being put forward these days:

• Daffodils cultivated above 1,200 feet above sea level are being promoted as holding one of the keys to fighting Alzheimers disease. Apparently these late flowering daffodils contain higher levels of galanthamine (which helps correct enzyme imbalances in the brain).
• Fish and Chips, could prevent the onset of Parkinson's Disease. Cod and several other fish species contain parvalbumin a protein that may prevent the brain disease developing. The protein scavenges (by aggregating itself to) another damaging protein (alpha-synuclain) that causes Parkinson's. It may also help fight Alzheimers, Motor Neurone, and Huntingdon's. The study by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, seems to negate earlier ideas that Omega-3 and Omega-6 were what gave fish diet eaters protection against brain diseases.

Ah well, back to the Lycra ..... right after the fish and chips, probiotic drink and Triphala tablet.