Are there any timers?
“ There is a danger zone, a vulnerability zone. But that is relatively
small, because the body has its own defence mechanism. But what is ageing? It is the progressive shrinkage of the homeodynamic space. This ability to live is becoming lesser, which leads to the emergence of one or more diseases, which finally kill us. All the diseases have a common cause, which is the process of ageing. “We can either work with one disease at a time, which is the
normal or popular procedure in biomedical research, or we can prevent these diseases by doing something about the ageing process. So the aim of ageing research is to modulate, to intervene in the process, so that these diseases are either delayed or never come; because once they come
that requires the traditional
biomedical intervention. “We do not work on extension of lifespan
- lifespan has its own complex nature - but improving the healthspan so that we do not have suffering and diseases in the last 10-15 years of life. A lot of scientists are working on different aspects of that. Most common are temporary remedies, where we take hormone therapies and antioxidants and stem cells and try to fix what’s going wrong one at a time.“ Dr Rattan’s work on hormesis concerns
prevent that shrinkage of homeodynamics, becoming more and more sensitive to disturbances? “This is where I’d like to introduce the concept of two sides of
stress. We all know that chronic, constant long-term stress is very harmful for the body. But there is the other side of stress – that stress at a lower level generally improves your living ability, because this is the property of the living system – when there is stress, it tries to counteract it and tries to match that stress. Then you can get benefits.” Dr Rattan describes three types of hormetin – physical, mental and nutritional, and sees the last of these as the most important. He explains: “The conditions that cause
“Beyond the
age of 40 and 45, that is when in
attempting to reduce this homeodynamic space by applying an appropriate level of stress to produce positive results as the body raises its defence systems to combat that challenge. “If there is a very serious deficiency of a molecule, some
biological terms we say ageing starts”
antioxidants can help, some hormones can help, but in a normal healthy person most of these things generally do not work and are just piecemeal therapies,” says Dr Rattan. “Then there is the more promising and successful strategy of prevention – how can we
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hormetics are called hormetins, and there are three types – the first is hormetin P, or physical hormetins. Exercise is a physical hormetin that causes stress and damage in the body, and you are able to get benefits after the exercise. “The second kind of hormetin is hormetin M,
or mental, and there is some research showing that even meditation induces a little bit of stress – that is why you get benefit. But the most promising area right now is hormetin N, nutritional hormetins. A lot of things we eat we don’t eat due to their nutritional value but due to something else, such as spices, ginger, garlic, onion, chilis, pepper. They have very little nutritional value, but they are good for the body because they cause a little bit of stress or damage,
so using this combination is very important to obtain healthy life. “Hormetins can be a very powerful holistic tool, combining
physical, mental and nutritional hormetins - taking variability in food, choosing your stress. Stress of choice can be a very powerful strategy to achieve healthy ageing, increase healthspan and have a better quality of life.”
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