The Ageing Process and Age Associated Diseases:

Aging is a highly complex biological process resulting in the gradual loss of function of organs and cell with the eventual outcome of death.  There are, no doubt, a number of contributing factors to the Aging process.  The Centre’s scientists are researching the process based on their yeast discoveries concerning how bioenergy loss occurs with age and the significant contribution this bioenergy loss makes to disease.

Studies of Aging can be thought of in two ways.  One view is that it is inevitable and little can be done to alter the process.  A second view is that Aging is subject to manipulation.  In this latter view, espoused by the Centre, many diseases that are part of the process (such as heart attack, strokes and diabetes) can be addressed so as to improve life style and perhaps even increase longevity.  Life expectancy has undergone considerable change over the millennia, particularly in recent times.  Life expectancy in ancient Rome was about 22 years, in the Middle Ages about 35 years, by 1910 (UK census) 55 years, and now in advanced societies about 80 years.  Life potential is at least 115 years.  Some very few individuals do live to this age, so it can be done!

A major breakthrough in our understanding of the Aging process has been the discovery by the Centre scientists that genetic defects occur in the energy producing parts (mitochondria) of cells of the body and that these defects accumulate with age.  Mitochondria are microscopic specialized particles occurring in all cells;  their major function is to produce the fuel (ATP) required for all the energy consuming processes of living cells/organs/individuals.  The progressive decrease, with age, in bioenergy capacity of the mitochondria leads to the progressive decline in total bioenergy capacity of Aging individuals.

The Centre’s landmark hypothesis was published in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, in 1989.  Laboratory work since that time by the Centre and many international laboratories now strongly support the central hypothesis, first formulated in the Centre.  The key principle has thus been established that the accumulation of mitochondrial gene mutations, with age, occurs in all human and animal tissues, contributing in a major way to the Aging process.

In a major step forward, Centre scientists have developed the concept that we all suffer from bioenergetic disease which is progressive with age.  It is suggested that the decline in bioenergetic capacity with age constitutes an intrinsic factor in all associated diseases, for example heart, vascular, brain (strokes, mental acuity) and other degenerative diseases.  These conditions are studied with a view to altering their course of development by the application of a tissue-energization therapy (redox therapy).