
Japanese Herb Ashitaba May Slow Down Aging, Ninjas, & Other Problems:
So since the beginning of time, people have been trying to live longer & better.
Many quests including those for Health have been for some kind of “Holy Grail”.
Repair the damage, cure the big diseases, then live to 100 and beyond.
But what if you’re not an immortal gorgeous Corsican vampire like our pal Yazemeenah Rossi?
Well, SCIENCE! by an Austrian team just found out some folk herbal medicine may be the next step in that quest…
How Did We Get Here?:
So, science has been trying to come up with life-extension tech forever.
Whether it’s some mad singularity stuff from Ray Kurzweil, or even nuttier stuff like the 2045 protocol for crazy billionaires.
Everyone wants to live forever in some odd form or another, even if it’s just a glorified Arnim Zola from “Captain America, The Winter Soldier”.
But the short answer for this study is: The Graz Austria team just found out a Japanese herb extends the lifespan of test animals by at least 20 percent through the process of Autophagy that’s long been theorized as the nearest step to living much much longer.
Read on to find out more…
So What Has Science Cooked-Up So Far?:
Ok, so the best Science has been able to cook-up so far for life extension are as follows:
1) Calorie-Restriction
2) Intermittent-Fasting
3) Resveratrol and Anthocyanins
4) Anti-Inflammatories like Aspirin
5) 30 Minutes Of Cardiovascular Exercise Daily
6) Possibly Young Blood
7) Reduction of “Bad” Foods like Saturated Fats and Processed Meats
8) Mediterranean Diets
9) Fancy Chemical Compounds Like NAD+
10) Removal of Senescent Cells
11) Autophagy
And it turns out the last 2 a few of them are linked.
Is Ashitaba The First Zombie-Cell Killer?:
Those 2 are the things the study focused on with their weird Japanese herb.
In a victory for herbalists & folk-mediciners everywhere,
A traditional folk medicine from Japan called Ashitaba, once used by Samurai warriors no-less,
May have some surprising health benefits.
Remember those “Zombie Cells” we told you about awhile ago?
Well this herb jump-starts the process that makes your body get rid of them.
As we discussed, for some reason, the body just does not always get rid of those snarky as aggressively as it should.
How To Kill The Real Zombies:
-Especially as you age, when you need it more than ever.
Because that’s exactly when the process coincidentally slows down.
And their presence emits all kinds of rancid biochemical-products that slowly wreak havoc on the body,
Sort-of like that one iffy uncle at a Thanksgiving Day meal.
Or how one gray hair seems to soon create others around it.
And so-far, short of some as-yet experimental drugs called “Senolytics”,
The only thing we have to get the body to clean-out those Zombie Cells looks like:
1) Calorie Reduction
2) Intermittent-Fasting
3) Maybe Cardiovascular Exercise
Where Could This Go?:
So the study that tried to find a #4 for that list, looked at over 180 different herbs,
All with some kind of health-benefits, and also Flavonoid-content.
It then tested them on several different living things from yeast, to worms, to fruit-flies, and mice.
What they found was if any living thing was given enough Ashitaba,
Its lifespan was increased by at-least 20%!
That’s with No Calorie-Restriction or Intermittent-Fasting!
Japanese Herb Jump-Starts The Body’s Cleaning Cycle:
And the central-mechanism researchers believe triggered this life-extension was of-course Autophagy,
Getting your body to go-after & dispose of its own Zombie-Cells, and perhaps other biological-junk, en-masse.
Now regardless of the fact that these results came from test-organisms,
Many things about all living things are similar, like Nutrition, Metabolism, and Disease.
So the results should not be discounted because of the subjects.
But Wait, It Gets Even Better Than Just Increased-Longevity!:
Here’s the thing.
Senescent-Cells, Zombie-Cells, and otherwise damaged-and-unrepairable cells also pose another set of problems.
Malfunction.
But they are not only damaged by Age alone.
So not only could you slow down the Natural wear-and-tear of living.
You could also slow down the Accidental wear-and-tear, too!
For example, several health problems may have their roots in some kind of Cellular-Damage.
Well, for whatever reason, let’s say our bodies are less-than-perfect at cleaning that up.
Why Cure Diseases When You Can Just Avoid Them?:
And those unrepaired-cells hang-around and cause problems, in similar ways to our arch-enemies, the Zombie-Cells?
So, what if you could take something that would regularly-ensure your body was cleaning itself up at the absolute optimum schedule and rate?
That is the idea behind “Senolytic Drugs”. -Almost all of which are experimental right now.
Well, it looks like the Japanese Samurai had this figured out about 600 years ago.
Because the cleanup routine that Ashitaba seems to start not-only slows aging by removing the off-effects of the zombies.
It may also stop errors from other damaged-cells and excess biochemicals that result in major diseases, too.
Like Oxidative Stress, Inflammation, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and Cancer to name a few.
-Just because it helps put out small fires before they turn into big ones!
And several of the tests show it does things like that!
Particularly in the mice with heart-disease, or alcohol-problems.
It’s Like Herbal Drano For Every Cell In Your Body:
If it’s not the Holy Grail, at least the next frontier in anti-aging is Senolytic Drugs,
And this Japanese herb looks like it’s the first legitimate candidate we have!
So as long as the followup-tests on actual humans go well,
We may not have to wait very long to start taking the first one to help us all live both longer and better!
The future will probably result in better and more-powerful biotech formulations,
Even though there is no time like the present, don’t go crazy taking Ashitaba just yet.
Wait for further results to come in. It has to be done Safely if it’s to be done at-all, because drugs can frequently be safer than plant-concentrates.
Yes, herbal supplements still have risks, so you want to make sure even your Japanese Anti-Aging elixir is safe, too!
Photo Credits: “pyramid structure”, by Charlie Lawrence
Links:
• Source: U.Graz [Translated]
• Source Study: NatureComm. – The flavonoid 4,4′-dimethoxychalcone promotes autophagy-dependent longevity across species
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