Page 21 - Reading Success B8

Aging begins at the moment we are born. The long process of running down
and wearing out reduces the body’s capacity to deal with illness, shock, and

damage. Even the most athletic must yield to the weight and toll of our years.
Some parts of the body, such as the brain and the muscles, develop, and barring
accidents slowly but surely wear out. Others, such as skin cells and blood

corpuscles, are renewed regularly every day, even up to the end of life, in a
constant program of replacement. But something seems to go wrong with the
copying mechanism with age. The skin loses its elasticity, nerve cells lose their

sensitivity, and the body as a whole becomes less resistant to disease and less
able to adjust to strain or injury. Some cells may even become such poorer copies
of their active predecessors that the body may reject them.

Delaying this process is a matter of deep concern to most of us, and some
researchers believe that through injections, older people maintain the same

hormone levels as younger people, and cell replacement can carry on almost
indefinitely. The most promising method of slowing down age is through diet.

Laboratory animals given a balanced diet containing all the essential ingredients,
but with the calorie intake reduced to only three-fifths the normal level, have
shown a lifespan two-fifths longer than usual. All the normal deteriorations in vigor

and age-related complaints also occurred some 40 percent later than usual. The
effect is to stretch the whole aging process.

In theory, then, the lives of humans might be made nearly half as long again. All
that is needed, it seems, is the perseverance to stick to the recommended diet for

long enough. The main problem so far has been that doctors could see whether
the diet worked only when a patient eventually died after a lifetime following it, by
which time the physician might be dead, too.

Main Idea

What is the main idea of this story?

a. the natural aging process in humans
b. why some of the bodies processes eventually deteriorate

c. the aging process and how it might be slowed
d. why certain people age differently than others

24_Reading Success B 8