Therapeutic exercises of Chinese medicine. C. Qingnan

Introduction.
Average human lifespan
All living things on Earth have a certain period of existence. For example, cats live 10 years, dogs 18, buffaloes 30, horses 40, elephants 150, turtles 300, and whales 400 years.
How long can a person live? Scientists, after long and careful research, based on the law of the average life span of animals and humans established by them, propose the following method of calculation: the average life span of mammals should be from five to seven periods required for their growth. In humans, the growth period is approximately 20–25 years. According to the above calculation, the optimal life expectancy for humans should be between 100 and 175 years. Wu Keqian, a Chinese physician during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), in his treatise How to Build Health. Preface" wrote: "From the moment of birth, a person fully grows (matures) by the age of twenty-five. If we draw a parallel with animals, then he should live 125-200 years.
Taking as a starting point the time required for puberty of mammals, scientists have deduced the maximum life expectancy as 8-10 times this period. In humans, puberty usually occurs at 14–15 years of age. According to these calculations, the maximum life span of a person is 112-150 years.
Taking the number of cell divisions as a criterion, the American cytologist, having studied the law of division and proliferation of stem cells in the human embryo, proposed a calculation of the average duration of human life, based on the number of cell divisions. Chicken lung stem cells divide 13-35 times and have a lifespan of 30 years. Sea turtle lung stem cells divide 72-114 times and live for 300 years. The average division cycle of lung stem cells in all animals is 2.4 years. Human lung stem cells divide about 50 times. According to this system, the average life expectancy of people should be about 120 years.
Having made calculations based on the duration of the gestation period, the Soviet biologist Yermonsky came to the conclusion that there is a coefficient of fluctuation between embryonic development and human life expectancy, equal to 15.15. A person has a pregnancy is 266 days. Multiplying this by 15.15, we get 11 years. If you multiply by another 15.15, it will be 167 years. This is the upper limit of the duration of human life.
Based on the viability of tissues and organs, experiments have shown that they can exist for many years outside the human body. Calculations based on such studies determine the life span of 140–150 years.
All these theories agree that the average human life span should be over a hundred years. Disagreements arise only in specific terms: 120, 150, 180 or 200 years. Sukharevsky of the Soviet Union announced that life should last 400 years.
People whose life path is more than a hundred years have always been in China. There are many records of this. The book Incidents from the Reign of Kaiyuan (713–742) of the Tang Dynasty states: “Yu Bolun, at the age of 128, was still full of life. His son has already died, but two grandchildren lived with him - 70 and 80 years old. The Chronicle of Dong Wei says: “Yang Xiazui is 81 years old, and his uncles are over 120. We saw his grandfather, who calls himself Mr. Song. He is 195 years old." From the text "Collection of various bibliographic records": "In Nanyang there is the Zu River, whose waters are sweet and fragrant. More than ten families live there and drink it. All live to very advanced years, and some - even up to 120-130 years. "History of the Zhou Dynasty" narrates: "A grandmother from the Wang Renyu family, during the Five Dynasties, lived for more than 200 years." There are records that Peng Zu lived 800 years, Lao Tzu -
160, Huangdi (Yellow Emperor) - 110, Emperor Yao - 118, Emperor Shun - 110, Hui Zhao - a monk who held an important post in the Five Dynasties - 290 years old, Sun Simiao - the famous physician of the Tang Dynasty - 101 years old, Zhen Quan - 103, Li Zhishuang was 136 years old, Sun Jianlong of Yaojiang was 159, and Liang Lanxiang of Guangxi was 142 years old, both of whom lived during the Qing Dynasty…
The historical literature speaks of many of those who have lived long enough lives, and it is not possible to list them all here. There is data on many modern long-livers. Since some of the information has already been published in the press, there is no need to repeat it in this book.
With the steady improvement of living conditions and the improvement of the quality of health care, it is hoped that over time there will be more and more people who have crossed the century.

Causes of aging and wilting

All human life can be expressed as successive birth, growing up, maturity, old age and death. But what is the cause of aging and wilting? Having received the answer to this question, it will be possible to find a way to delay the onset of old age and thereby prolong life.
Among a number of factors, the following should be highlighted.
Genetics. Most scientists consider lifespan to be one of the characteristics of a species, determined mainly by hereditary factors. For example, a mouse lives a maximum of 5 years, a rabbit - 15, a dog - 18, a pig - 20, and a horse - 40 years. The life spans of elephants, turtles and whales have already been pointed out. How long they live depends on a number of characteristics inherent in their species, or on hereditary factors. This also applies to people. Life expectancy depends on heredity, and the general picture is that the long life of parents affects their children.
According to our survey, 21-71 percent of the world's older people come from long-lived families. In Shenyang, the figure is 50 percent, in Bama Yao Autonomous Region (Guangxi Province) it is 60 percent, and in Guangzhou it is 65 percent. In addition, there are families whose many generations have been distinguished by a long life. For example, in the family history of 45 very elderly people from Changsha, 31 percent of the last three generations were long-lived, and 51 percent of their family members also had a considerable life expectancy. Why? Because the difference between individuals is determined by hereditary genetics. These genes are located in the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of the cell nucleus and in DNA as an integral part of the chromosomes. When a cell divides, a chromosome splits into two parts, where the DNA of one is an exact copy of the other. The two identical DNAs are now on two chromosomes, and so their existence continues in the two newborn cells. Part of the genes responsible for various properties occupies a relatively small part of the DNA molecule. Their functions include the growth, division and metabolism of cells through what is called the information transmission system. Some scientists believe that the genes responsible for similar characteristics occupy not one, but several small parts of DNA. In other words, genes are characterized by repeatability. The genes that carry data about life expectancy also have their own spare options.
In the process of aging, DNA molecules are constantly worn out, and reserve genes are used. When the reserves are depleted, old age "appears in all its glory." Other scientists believe that with age, failures in the information transmission system begin to happen more and more often, as a result, cells function less and less, and this leads to old age. There is also an opinion that there are "aging genes" that come into play at a certain stage of life, leading to regressive changes in the body. As these changes accumulate, old age sets in. How is aging controlled by hereditary genes? To date, no answer has been found. With further research, some explanation will certainly be offered for this.
The theory of endocrinopathy (dysfunction of the endocrine glands). The endocrine system includes the sex and thoracic (thymus) glands, the pituitary gland, the thyroid gland, and the adrenal glands. The hormones they produce are closely related to the growth, development and physiological functions of the human body. Therefore, they can either accelerate or slow down the aging process. With age, the function of the endocrine glands is weakened, which leads to a gradual deterioration in the functioning of the body and, thus, to old age.
immune theory. Immunity is one of the physiological functions of the body. Thanks to it, the body can get rid of foreign elements, removing and destroying invading antigens (viruses, bacteria, tumor cells, etc.) or isomeric substances (dead and damaged cells), which are the results of the body's vital activity. The immune system protects the human body by resisting various types of infections, but in some cases, such as allergies, autoimmune reactions, and transplant immunity, it can be harmful. Take a person who has suffered severe skin burns and needs a skin graft. Both his own healthy skin from other parts of the body and the skin of other people can be used. But the transplanted skin is subject to necrosis. This is an example of immune rejection of foreign elements. The central link of the immune system are lymphocytes, which are of two categories:
B-lymphocytes, produced by bone marrow stem cells, and T-lymphocytes, in the production of which thymus gland (thymus). They can recognize and destroy hereditarily different substances such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, cancer cells and various toxins, thus protecting the body. In middle age, the action of the thymus gland fades (upon reaching