The Effects of Ageing

How does the Ageing process affect our bodies?

• Diminishing impulses between nerve cells, poor circulation and decreasing sensory perception affect the brain.
• Body cells succumb to oxidative damage, digestion becomes sluggish and the liver becomes congested and
• The immune system does not function as well as it used to.
• Emotional trauma and multiple losses occurring in older age often lead to a diminished investment in life and the stress of demanding situations often contributes to what appears to be a physical illness.

Ageing and Free Radicals

Ageing is largely due to the effect of damaging substances in the body called free radicals. Free radicals are dangerous chemicals which are produced continuously in the body, and they cause oxidative damage unless kept in check by free radical scavengers, or antioxidants.

In the body, oxygen atoms live together in pairs. The strength of their togetherness depends on the protection supplied by antioxidants. When antioxidants are in short supply, when diet contains an overdose of undesirable fats or when the body is exposed excessively to pollution, radiation, infection, stress, smoking, etc, the oxygen atoms break up and form individual free radicals.

These free radicals are desperate for a partner to bond with and create a rollercoaster effect, which produces new free radicals. The resulting havoc causes damage to cells and tissues to become cross-linked (a wrinkle is the result of cross-linking), suppresses the manufacture of new healthy cells, and reduces the body’s ability to fight infection and repair cell damage — in other words, encouraging premature ageing and degenerative disease.

What Accelerates Free Radical Damage?

• Smoking
• Pollution including exposure to car exhaust fumes
• Eating fried, barbecued or fatty foods
• Consuming too much alcohol
• Stress
• Over-exposure to sunlight also increase free radical damage.

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