Chapter 2 (1)

human life limit
In modern society, everyone knows that health is golden, but health cannot be obtained overnight, but the result of long-term scientific life.Once health is neglected, diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, tumors, etc. will take the opportunity to enter and become the five major killers threatening the health of modern people.
Faced with more and more people dying young, the public is turning their attention to traditional health care, hoping to learn some health care methods from traditional Chinese medicine, the cultural treasure of the motherland.As someone who has been engaged in the research of diet therapy of traditional Chinese medicine for more than 20 years, through these dozens of lectures, I can help you get some knowledge of traditional health care, so that you can easily combine daily diet with health care and rehabilitation , To achieve the purpose of disease prevention and treatment, this is my honor, but also my responsibility and obligation.

First ask a question: What is the longest average human life expectancy?
From ancient times to the present, the average life expectancy of human beings has been greatly improved.According to the research of archaeologists, the average life expectancy of Peking Man from 500,000 to 200,000 years ago was only about 17 years old.After humans entered a civilized society, the average life expectancy has been extended.According to relevant data, the ancient Romans were 15-30 years old; the average life expectancy of the English in the Middle Ages was estimated to be 33 years;According to statistics from the United Nations, by 1995, the average life expectancy in the world had reached 65 years. In 2007, Japan had the longest life expectancy in the world, with an average of 79 years for men and 86 years for women.

In my country, the average life expectancy was 35 years in 1947, and increased to 72.5 years in 2007 (71 years for men and 74 years for women).From the above figures, we can know that the average life expectancy of human beings has increased several times for thousands of years.But if you are careful, you may have discovered that this is only the average life expectancy that has been greatly improved.In ancient times, the average life expectancy was only 30 to 40 years old, mainly due to the backwardness of medicine, especially in maternal and child health care, which resulted in high infant and minor mortality rates, which lowered the average life expectancy.At the same time, the long-term war is also a factor of lower life expectancy.At that time, the maximum life expectancy of people was not much different from that of modern people.

It can be seen from this that the improvement of human living standards and the advancement of medical technology have only reduced the occurrence of early human death, allowing more people to approach the life span of natural death, but the maximum life span of human beings has not been greatly improved.

So, is the current average life expectancy the limit of human life expectancy?How long can humans live?French scientist Buffon was the first to study the natural lifespan of humans. Based on his observation and research on the lifespan of mammals, he deduced that the natural lifespan of humans should be 5 to 7 times that of their growth and development period. The growth period of ordinary people is 20 to 25 years old. , In this way, the life span of human beings should be 100 to 175 years old.

Another way of extrapolating is to count the number of divisions of somatic cells.For example, a sea turtle in the Pacific Ocean has individual cells that divide 72-114 times in a lifetime and can live up to 250 years; chicken cells divide 15-35 times in a lifetime and can live up to 30 years; human cells can divide about 50 times in a lifetime. Based on this calculation, the life expectancy is at least 120 years.

In addition, there are methods of estimating human life expectancy such as the theory of sexual maturity.No matter what calculation method is adopted, the theoretical life span limit of human beings is no less than 120 years old.But in fact, regardless of all human beings or a certain nation, even the so-called long-lived nation or long-lived area, individuals who live over a hundred years old are still very small.

Therefore, the average life expectancy of people is far from the ideal level.However, I believe that in the near future, people can obtain a longer life span through the advancement of medical technology, the establishment of health concepts and the improvement of personal lifestyle.
So how can we get a longer life?More and more people are turning their attention to Chinese medicine for health preservation.It can be said that Chinese medicine is one of the most concentrated manifestations of Chinese culture.

Learn some concepts of Chinese medicine
Some friends may not know much about Chinese medicine, and they don't know much about the five elements that Chinese medicine often talks about.So what is the five elements? What is the relationship between the five elements and our lives? Next, let me give you a brief introduction.

The five elements of yin and yang, wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, generate and restrain each other. The five internal organs of the human body, the liver, heart, spleen, lung, and kidney, correspond to the five elements in this way: wood corresponds to the liver, fire corresponds to the heart, soil corresponds to the spleen, metal corresponds to the lungs, and water corresponds to the kidneys. . "Shangshu" contains the earliest definition of the five elements in China:
The wood is said to be straight, and what is curved is bent; what is straight is stretched.The so-called straight, that is, the abbreviation of straight branches and straight stems, is a vivid description of the growth shape of trees, saying that the trunk is straight upward, and the branches are zigzag outward.From the phenomenon of tree's upward growth, outward expansion, and luxuriant branches and leaves, it is extended to the characteristics of growth, prosperity, vitality, stretching, and stretching of trees.

Huo means Yanshang, which means that everything that is warm, bright, active, and ascending can be attributed to fire.

Soil is called harvesting, harvesting is planting, harvesting is harvesting.A simple example is that the spleen and stomach transport water and grains and distribute cloth in all directions. This functional nature makes it belong to the earth.Soil can gestate seeds, make them grow slowly, and finally bear fruit to give back to nature, which is further extended to the fact that soil has the characteristics of growth, bearing, metaplasia, gestation, and long-term nourishment.