OT: Longevity

[Taera]

Hello all, long time no see. I wanted to bring this to your attention:

My mom brought to my attention an odd article today. The article was published in a Russian magazine, and while this raises some doubts in me, im starting to wonder.

It was talking about how humans achieve longevity. The research was that all of those who lived for longer than normal (120 years? longer?) had had so many differences - smoked or not, drank or not, etc.
One thing united most of them - they lived in small settlements. And whats so special about those?

These people dont bathe as often. And dont use soap to wash themselves.

According to the article, the oily coating that the body coats itself with serves as the natural protection for the body. When in place, it stops bacteria from entering the human body whatsoever.

It also says that a few test subjects, who previously had serious health problems, hadn't bathed for 9 months - and their conditions improve drastically.

Where does washing with soaps come from? From Europe, and quite recently. People had always bathed - but they used water, steam, and many many oils and other ingridients that would make them smell better. Romans, Egyptians, Arabs, Chinese, you name it.

The article is very pursuasive. I am extremly skeptical as this hadn't been posted anywhere, at least not to my knowledge. Abd i dont realy believe in miraculous regeneration of human body. But the oil part makes perfect sense. After all, the coating does have a purpose and even our cells are coated with oil, which stops other materials.

Any thoughts? I'll try to get exact translation of names in the article.

[ May 29, 2004, 17:01: Message edited by: Taera ]