if aging is not an etiology, then what is it

[Guest guest]

There have been debates here and at PCOM about the inclusion of age as

an etiological factor in illness. the sole case against its inclusion

has been the absence of aging from standard TCM text lists of internal,

external and miscellaneous factors. However, Phillipe Sionneau

regularly mentions aging in his texts as etiological and says this is

common in many modern and classical texts, if not in basic texts. So

clearly there is precedent. As one ages, it ultimately does not matter

if one eats scrupulously, exercises religiously and avoids any

excessive taxation or exposure to the elements. You will still show

the signs of aging, your systems will decline and you will die. And

you will not die of old age. That's a nice myth, but everyone dies of

organ failure (heart, liver, kidney, etc.) not because these organs

just stop one day. They lose their ability to function over a long

decline. In other words, pathological states such as spleen and kidney

xu occur in everyone without exception at a certain point. If one does

everything right all their life, they may suffer little, but at some

point they will experience a cascade of systems failures. While that

is the best we can hope for, it still pathological, the opposite of

physiological. Jing xu, the decline of essence is a disease factor in

TCM. The primary cause, all else being equal, is aging. We can be

euphemistic if we want, but aging as an etiology of illness is clear in

both western and eastern medicine.

 

However some life extension therapists would go further and say aging

is not an etiology, but a disease. The causes include accumulated DNA

errors and the failure to clear metabolic cellular waste. However even

if you prevent these with all your efforts, you will still grow old and

die. This is because your essence declines just from being alive. So

while it is natural for essence to decline, does that mean it is a fait

accompli or is intervention possible. Since essence decline causes an

illness - aging, it is our ethical responsibility to treat this if we

can. If nothing is done 6 billion people will be dead in 100 years,

the greatest mass die off in human history, far more than the flue or

plague, Now just because no prior form of medicine has made any

headway in offsetting the inevitable (despite yogic and daoist claims

to the contrary, such practices clearly are not viable as medicine for

the entire population or they would have been implemented thousands of

years ago), does that mean there is no hope or it is wrong to

intervene. Just because we have died for so long, does that means its

what is supposed to happen? that makes no sense. We could also have

assumed infant mortality, death in childbirth and cancer are

inevitable. Where do you draw the line in deciding to intervene. I

say whenever there is safe effective treatment. I will not even

entertain ethical concerns about what would happen if everyone lives

forever. we will see what we shall see.

 

So how does one impact essence decline. Well, there is no evidence

that anything works except calorie restriction. Eat less, live longer.

Not a little less, but a lot less. Funny, those anorexic supermodels

middle america whines about will actually live far longer than their

fat heartland counterparts as long as they take their vitamins and get

enough EFAs. The revenge of the blue states? But I digress. :-) In

TCM, only qi gong can impact prenatal essence supposedly, but again,

how come this method never cured aging in ancient times. Evidence

suggest that yoga and qi gong help stall aging, but not prevent it. No

natural substance, no practice can do this. However bioengineering and

nanotech hold out the possiblity of impacting cells at the level of

DNA. While people are concerned about altering the genome and creating

Frankenpeople, I am merely talking about restoring one's own youthful

genome. Your DNA cleaned back up; no additives. The possibility of

enhancement intrigues me, but I will not discuss that here. See my

blog. So since TCM will never be able to contribute at this level,

what do we do should it become a reality (look for news in the next

5-10 years of major advances, if they are going to happen anytime soon

- I am amazed how reliable tech predictions have become)? I am sure

there will be many in our field who will reject this type of

intervention and even lobby for its outlaw. But when that time comes,

we should stick close to our libertarian roots and be openminded. TCM

predicted the etiology 2000 years ago and nothing in the nei jing says

how or how not to cure this. So I think we have free reign here.

 

In the mean time, TCM will function as a way to build optimum health

and sit tight and see what else happens down the road. Being restored

to youth does not mean one is symptom free, though. That means a role

will remain for the noniatrogenic relief of syndromes that arise

between genetic tune-ups. With the hope of living centuries, people

will not be comfortable with using drugs that damage their livers and

cause other side effects for minor complaints. So TCM may still have a

place for a long time to come. Now you may wonder why I keep harping

on these issues that seem oh so peripheral to our field. But the

changes in western medicine will affect us dramatically. I now think

that substances like drugs and herbs will not be dominant forms of

therapy for chronic illness in a few decades. It will be the end of

the entire previous era of medicine, which in a broad view includes

TCM, ayurveda, folk herbology, homeopathy AND western med. They all

involve taking a substance(s) to alter biochemistry at the supragenetic

level, which has ultimately no lasting effect on prenatal jing, per se.

When I got into TCM in the mid-eighties, it seemed like WM had not

made any headway and had actually regressed in its barbarism. MDs

seemed to be ignoring their own science that supported holistic

interventions and accomplishing nothing of real note.

 

Since then, the human genome has been mapped and it happened a lot

quicker than anyone expected. That was just a few years ago. There

have already been quantum leaps in understanding since then. We have

clones now. We have practically cured small groups of parkinson's,

type 1 diabetes and spinal injury patients with genetic and cellular

treatments. Despite any hype, there is no evidence that TCM can touch

any of these. With progress being exponential, we can't even predict

what will be next and when. Most of the progress in WM for the 20th

century has focused on infection control, accidents, emergencies, etc.

We can say compared to all of prior human history, the progress in

handling the cause of most deaths in human history was also exponential

during the 20th century. However, with more people living longer, the

causes of death amongst those few who survived to be elderly in past

eras, now became the main health problems in the US. Cancer and heart

disease have probably always been the leading causes of elderly death,

there were a lot less elderly folks in past eras since half of all

births didn't survive infancy. So the fact that we have not made much

headway on cancer and heart disease yet is really not meaningful. It

would be like saying in 1925 that we had known about germs as a cause

of illness for 50 years and had not figured out how to reliably kill

them. Then all of a sudden, penicillin was discovered and by the end

of WWII, was ubiquitous. While antibiotic overuse has now caused

problems of its own, it is probably not an understatement to say that

antibiotics have saved more lives than all other drugs combined.

Perhaps we are sitting on a simlar precipice, saying its never gonna

happen, when we are actually just about to fall. And if its not

abundantly clear, these considerations should affect how we carry on

about politics, as well. When this new era arrives, no one is really

going to take seriously anymore the idea of acupuncturists being

physicians. We will play a allied role in system that is dominated by

a new western medicine. That is my new year's prediction for this

decade to come.

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Interesting article. Old age has been a discussion in classical Chinese

times although it does not appear to have been translated into TCM. Up

until recently various groups with ages 100+ were still living a natural

life (Ning Xia valley highley prized for a variety of wolfberry was one

area). Once modern ways, drugs and foods were introduced their population's

average age declined. As for other ways to experience your full genetic

potential, I would suggest looking into the Paleolithic diet of our

ancestors. They ate a very simple diet with lots of EFA, which allowed for

man to continue living on from 50,000 years ago. If you want to read more

about this look into Dr. Barry Sear's book titled Omega Rx Zone. As modern

man uses more synthetic substances we need to understand the side effects

that they have upon our body. Man is definitely at a cross roads. We need

to understand this as our future is at stake. The good news in all of this

is that much of the world is poor and the people who want to continue to

promote this destructive path we are on want power and money. If the poorer

third world cannot provide them with this they will be left out or others

will have to pay for changes. Saving grace for them. Lastly, this new era

that we are entering will bring forth much change and new or revisited old

ideas. We have done so much with chemistry in medicine yet we know nothing

of energy. This is a growing time of energetic consciousness and new fields

like quantum physics and mechanics is leading the way. The theories of

these have been described in our ancient literature as well as that of other

ancient cultures. We have been highly critical of them due to our western

medical thinking. It is time to lift this veil and openly discover what

they might be saying. Later

Mike W. Bowser, L Ac

 

> <

>

>cha

> if aging is not an etiology, then what is it

>Wed, 29 Dec 2004 19:35:26 -0800

>

>There have been debates here and at PCOM about the inclusion of age as

>an etiological factor in illness. the sole case against its inclusion

>has been the absence of aging from standard TCM text lists of internal,

>external and miscellaneous factors. However, Phillipe Sionneau

>regularly mentions aging in his texts as etiological and says this is

>common in many modern and classical texts, if not in basic texts. So

>clearly there is precedent. As one ages, it ultimately does not matter

>if one eats scrupulously, exercises religiously and avoids any

>excessive taxation or exposure to the elements. You will still show

>the signs of aging, your systems will decline and you will die. And

>you will not die of old age. That's a nice myth, but everyone dies of

>organ failure (heart, liver, kidney, etc.) not because these organs

>just stop one day. They lose their ability to function over a long

>decline. In other words, pathological states such as spleen and kidney

>xu occur in everyone without exception at a certain point. If one does

>everything right all their life, they may suffer little, but at some

>point they will experience a cascade of systems failures. While that

>is the best we can hope for, it still pathological, the opposite of

>physiological. Jing xu, the decline of essence is a disease factor in

>TCM. The primary cause, all else being equal, is aging. We can be

>euphemistic if we want, but aging as an etiology of illness is clear in

>both western and eastern medicine.

>

>However some life extension therapists would go further and say aging

>is not an etiology, but a disease. The causes include accumulated DNA

>errors and the failure to clear metabolic cellular waste. However even

>if you prevent these with all your efforts, you will still grow old and

>die. This is because your essence declines just from being alive. So

>while it is natural for essence to decline, does that mean it is a fait

>accompli or is intervention possible. Since essence decline causes an

>illness - aging, it is our ethical responsibility to treat this if we

>can. If nothing is done 6 billion people will be dead in 100 years,

>the greatest mass die off in human history, far more than the flue or

>plague, Now just because no prior form of medicine has made any

>headway in offsetting the inevitable (despite yogic and daoist claims

>to the contrary, such practices clearly are not viable as medicine for

>the entire population or they would have been implemented thousands of

>years ago), does that mean there is no hope or it is wrong to

>intervene. Just because we have died for so long, does that means its

>what is supposed to happen? that makes no sense. We could also have

>assumed infant mortality, death in childbirth and cancer are

>inevitable. Where do you draw the line in deciding to intervene. I

>say whenever there is safe effective treatment. I will not even

>entertain ethical concerns about what would happen if everyone lives

>forever. we will see what we shall see.

>

>So how does one impact essence decline. Well, there is no evidence

>that anything works except calorie restriction. Eat less, live longer.

> Not a little less, but a lot less. Funny, those anorexic supermodels

>middle america whines about will actually live far longer than their

>fat heartland counterparts as long as they take their vitamins and get

>enough EFAs. The revenge of the blue states? But I digress. :-) In

>TCM, only qi gong can impact prenatal essence supposedly, but again,

>how come this method never cured aging in ancient times. Evidence

>suggest that yoga and qi gong help stall aging, but not prevent it. No

>natural substance, no practice can do this. However bioengineering and

>nanotech hold out the possiblity of impacting cells at the level of

>DNA. While people are concerned about altering the genome and creating

>Frankenpeople, I am merely talking about restoring one's own youthful

>genome. Your DNA cleaned back up; no additives. The possibility of

>enhancement intrigues me, but I will not discuss that here. See my

>blog. So since TCM will never be able to contribute at this level,

>what do we do should it become a reality (look for news in the next

>5-10 years of major advances, if they are going to happen anytime soon

>- I am amazed how reliable tech predictions have become)? I am sure

>there will be many in our field who will reject this type of

>intervention and even lobby for its outlaw. But when that time comes,

>we should stick close to our libertarian roots and be openminded. TCM

>predicted the etiology 2000 years ago and nothing in the nei jing says

>how or how not to cure this. So I think we have free reign here.

>

>In the mean time, TCM will function as a way to build optimum health

>and sit tight and see what else happens down the road. Being restored

>to youth does not mean one is symptom free, though. That means a role

>will remain for the noniatrogenic relief of syndromes that arise

>between genetic tune-ups. With the hope of living centuries, people

>will not be comfortable with using drugs that damage their livers and

>cause other side effects for minor complaints. So TCM may still have a

>place for a long time to come. Now you may wonder why I keep harping

>on these issues that seem oh so peripheral to our field. But the

>changes in western medicine will affect us dramatically. I now think

>that substances like drugs and herbs will not be dominant forms of

>therapy for chronic illness in a few decades. It will be the end of

>the entire previous era of medicine, which in a broad view includes

>TCM, ayurveda, folk herbology, homeopathy AND western med. They all

>involve taking a substance(s) to alter biochemistry at the supragenetic

>level, which has ultimately no lasting effect on prenatal jing, per se.

> When I got into TCM in the mid-eighties, it seemed like WM had not

>made any headway and had actually regressed in its barbarism. MDs

>seemed to be ignoring their own science that supported holistic

>interventions and accomplishing nothing of real note.

>

>Since then, the human genome has been mapped and it happened a lot

>quicker than anyone expected. That was just a few years ago. There

>have already been quantum leaps in understanding since then. We have

>clones now. We have practically cured small groups of parkinson's,

>type 1 diabetes and spinal injury patients with genetic and cellular

>treatments. Despite any hype, there is no evidence that TCM can touch

>any of these. With progress being exponential, we can't even predict

>what will be next and when. Most of the progress in WM for the 20th

>century has focused on infection control, accidents, emergencies, etc.

>We can say compared to all of prior human history, the progress in

>handling the cause of most deaths in human history was also exponential

>during the 20th century. However, with more people living longer, the

>causes of death amongst those few who survived to be elderly in past

>eras, now became the main health problems in the US. Cancer and heart

>disease have probably always been the leading causes of elderly death,

>there were a lot less elderly folks in past eras since half of all

>births didn't survive infancy. So the fact that we have not made much

>headway on cancer and heart disease yet is really not meaningful. It

>would be like saying in 1925 that we had known about germs as a cause

>of illness for 50 years and had not figured out how to reliably kill

>them. Then all of a sudden, penicillin was discovered and by the end

>of WWII, was ubiquitous. While antibiotic overuse has now caused

>problems of its own, it is probably not an understatement to say that

>antibiotics have saved more lives than all other drugs combined.

>Perhaps we are sitting on a simlar precipice, saying its never gonna

>happen, when we are actually just about to fall. And if its not

>abundantly clear, these considerations should affect how we carry on

>about politics, as well. When this new era arrives, no one is really

>going to take seriously anymore the idea of acupuncturists being

>physicians. We will play a allied role in system that is dominated by

>a new western medicine. That is my new year's prediction for this

>decade to come.

>

>

>Chinese Herbs

>

>

>

>

>

>

>