Want to Live Longer? 

Listen to the Ancient Herbalists
Reprinted from LCHN Number 14 with permission

Since ancient times, people have been seeking ways to live longer and healthier. 

Legends abound in different cultures, which describe persistent efforts through the centuries by sages, alchemists, herbalists and others in seeking the elixir of life.  No one has found it yet. But some people have fared better than others in this endeavor. 

There are numerous factors that contribute to aging. 

These include heredity, diet, nutrition, environment, profession, and personal attitude, etc.  There is no guarantee that we will live to a certain age.  We try our best to stay healthy, and the rest is out of our hands. Nevertheless, besides heredity, diet and nutrition are the most important factors in determining how long we live.  Only recently have we started to learn the importance of phytonutrients (nutrients from plants) in health maintenance.  These nutrients include certain ubiquitous phytochemicals (e.g., flavonoids, lignans, triterpenes, polysaccharides, etc.) that possess one or more of numerous beneficial pharmacological effects, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, detoxicant, immunomodulating, hypolipemic, hypotensive, anti-arthritic, anti-allergic, antihistaminic, anti-mutagenic, anti-tumor, antiviral, liver protectant, anti-atherosclerotic, hypoglycemic, healing, anti-fatigue, etc. Most traditional Chinese tonic herbs contain one or more groups of these phytochemicals, and have been used in China since antiquity.  Have they helped those in the know to live longer? Probably. Since herbalists and traditional Chinese physicians have over the centuries used and dispensed herbs and have obviously been in the know, how long have they lived? Is there a connection? The following is what I have found. There is no scientific "proof".  But you can draw your own conclusion.

 

Chinese tonic herbs used for over 2,000 years helped ancient Chinese herbalists live long lives.

Detailed records of Chinese tonic herbs date back about 2,000 years and less detailed records many centuries before that.  There are over 2,000 volumes of traditional books describing medicinal uses of Chinese herbs, over 200 of which also describe their food or diet uses.  They were the work of some 300 herbalists or physicians.  It was the long life spans of some 4 dozen of the most eminent of these authors that have attracted my attention.  Even by today’s standards, their life spans were impressively long.  For example, Li Shi-Zhen, author of the most famous herbal, Ben Cao Gang Mu, who was also probably the greatest herbalist of all time, lived 75 years (1518-1593 AD). The herbalist Meng Shen, who wrote China’s first diet herbal describing 227 herbs, lived to be 92 (621-713 AD).  The ancient physician, Wu Pu, who wrote the Wu Pu Ben Cao, describing 441 herbs, lived over 100 years (136/149-circa 250 AD).  Sun Si-Miao, a famous physician who wrote the Bei Ji Qian Jin Yao Fang and Qian Jin Yi Fang, formularies together describing over 7,300 prescriptions, lived 101 years (581-682 AD).  And Lan Mao, who wrote the famous Dian Nan Ben Cao, describing 448 herbs, many indigenous to Yunnan, lived to be 79 years old (1397-1476 AD). I have made a quick survey of 30 of the more well known authors based on information readily available to me and here is what I have found. These authors were either physicians or herbalists.  Among the 30 authors, 23 (76.7%) lived over 70 years, 13 of whom (43.3%) over 80, and 3 of whom (10%) over 90. The 7 (23.3%) who had life spans under 70 lived 37, 53, 57, 58, 59, 63, and 67 years, during the 11th, 18th, 11th, 18-19th, 19th, 18-19th, and 16-17th century, respectively.  Considering that the average life expectancy in the West a century ago was only 40 years, these individuals had remarkably long lives, in a time and environment when the knowledge of nutrition and health as well as hygiene, as we now know it, was supposed to be nonexistent. I believe their long life is no accident. I’ll bet they knew a few things about living from which we can learn.  The practice of traditional Chinese medicine has always stressed prevention rather than treatment of illnesses.  Exercise and diet are of prime importance in everyday living. These authors wrote extensively on the topic of health and long life, which invariably deals with tonics, certain foods, and special exercises.

 

Chinese herbal medicine used for centuries by the elite and knowledgeable to prolong lives.

When one examines Chinese herbal medicine, one will find many formulations that have been used for centuries by the elite and the knowledgeable to keep their body in balance and to prolong their lives.  These formulas contain the famous traditional tonics that only recently have been studied by modern science.  Examples of these tonics include ginseng root, astragalus root, schisandra fruit, lingzhi or reishi, fo-ti (cured heshouwu), lycium fruit, dangshen (codonopsis), danggui, eleuthero, epimedium, shanyao or Chinese yam (Dioscorea opposita), nuzhenzi (Ligustrum lucidum), jujube fruit, licorice root, Chinese black mushroom, baizhu (Atractylodes macrocephala), etc. What modern science has discovered is that many of these tonics share one or more common biological activities that include: immunopotentiating, immunomodulating, antioxidant, hypolipemic, anti-atherosclerotic, anti-tumor, hypotensive, hypoglycemic, anti-inflammatory, anti-arthritic, anti-hepatotoxic, etc.  All these activities contribute to the maintenance of good health and the retardation of the aging process.  These tonics have probably helped those famous herbalists and physicians attain their long lives.

 

Chinese medicine, a safe choice for better health

We may consider ourselves very advanced in scientific and medical achievements, yet our modern technology can’t even take care of the common cold; nor can it cure immunologic diseases, all of which depend on our body being in good shape, that is, in yin-yang (immunologic) balance.  Modern medicine has not found a way to treat the body as a whole to rid itself of immunologically imbalanced conditions.  Instead, many of the results of modern scientific endeavors (drugs, food additives, environmental stress, etc.) may have actually precipitated some of these immunologic illnesses. Furthermore, we have developed such a reliance on synthetic drugs that many of us turn to drugs as a solution to health problems that could easily be prevented or corrected by dietary or other non-drug means.  Nothing is worse than drinking and drugging (smoking, indiscriminate use of modern drugs, etc.) oneself sick and then trying to correct specific symptoms with more drugs, which starts the vicious cycle all over. In our modern world where environmental pollutants and untested food additives are ubiquitous, the least we can do to stay healthy is to be careful of what we ingest consciously or knowingly.  After keeping track of herbal drug research for so many years, I am convinced that many Chinese tonic herbs do have merit in keeping our body in balance and healthy. Considering how long those famous Chinese herbalists/physicians lived in their "primitive" times, it is not unreasonable to conclude that they knew how to stay healthy and achieve longevity. In fact, they left many clues in their writings that describe various types of life-prolonging tonics.  Whether these are called herbal nutrients or herbal therapeutics, they are available to those who seek them.  They can serve as an excellent source of safe and effective phytonutrients, provided that they are handled properly.