Walter:

>The oldest man on earth was a chinese man who lived to be about 250
>years old.

There have been many lies and inaccuracies due to illiteracy throughout
history. You can read "How and why we age", by Leonard Hayflick, PhD
or any other book on the subject.

>I don't think it has to do entirely with genetics.  There are two
>theories on aging.  They were already mentioned by the other poster.  I
>think that the antioxidants can slow the biological countdown.

Antioxydants can indeed increase LIFE EXPECTANCY, but not (maximum)
life span. Experiments on animals have been made, and there has been
no evidence of increased maximum life span at all.

>I read Paul Bragg's book on
>fasting, and he mentioned that when he went to India, he was surprised
>at an old man who had no grey hair.  He asked him what the secret was,
>and the man told him breathing.

Anecdotal. Many old men who don't meditate have few or no grey hair. My
uncle is 70, eats 90% cooked, doesn't have breathing practices and
his hair is still black.

>I believe that conquering aging will be possible by using integrative
>medicine which combines ancient practices (yoga, meditation, etc)

Check the history of Tai Chi Chuan and you will see masters who died
at the early age of 53...

Stefan:
>Yes, but compare the amount of offending substances. With SAD: one kilo-
>gram daily. With 100% raw: only environmental substances can intrude in
>your body (polluted water, air) and viruses/bacteria (micrograms of ma-
>terial)

And don't forget solar/cosmic radiations. And there are also internal
damages: the body needs free radicals anyway; errors appear when DNA
is duplicated, etc...

>Not even that. It's simply wrong. I don't remember, if it was here or
>on the paleofood-list but there is definitively a function for grand-
>parents. The tribe/society benefits from their knowledge and wisdom.
>There could be a big advantage if there are some centuries old people
>in tribes. They would have knowledge about rare events and would
>know how to deal with them.

Would you have enough knowledge to teach for 1000 years??? Honestly, the
amount of knowledge accumulated over a few decades is largely enough
for survival in Paleo societies.

>Jean-Louis:
>>If we consider than the length of life is proportional to the period
>>prior to adulthood (which is 18 years for humans), and we observe
>>chimpanzees and other close apes, we see that humans cannot expect much
>>more than 120 years.

>That period is subject to degeneration and is decreasing still now.
>Perhaps it is 25..30 years for humans. That would speak for a higher
>lifespan than 120 years.

I don't have the precise figures. The longevity records are
chimpanzee: 39
chimpanzee, troglodytes: 56
chimpanzee, mountain: 19

But I don't know how long their childhood lasts. Perhaps, even taking into
account the period of degeneration of 25..30 years, we wouldn't exceed
120 years.

Jean-Louis:
>>As for animals, no mammal I know lives more than about 1 century.

>Aren't there turtles living in deep sea which reach several hundred
>years? I'm not sure about that.

I said "MAMMALS". Turtles are not mammals. The longevity record observed
is: "Tortoise, Giant: 180"

>Neither do I, but it seems that the quality of poor blood can be greatly
>enhanced by fresh chlorophyll, whose molecule is almost the same as the heme
>molecule but for the Magnesium atom vs the Iron atom.  So eat up your fresh
>raw organic green leaves !!

That's a classical argument for vegetarism, but be careful that the
argument can be reversed (what if we drink blood, as the Masai do?) :-)

And, final remark: the telomere theory is still speculative, although many
papers have already been written. However, the fact that human cells
only divide 40-60 times (50 on average) was discovered 30 years ago,
has been checked numerous times and is a well established fact.
There is scant evidence that the number of divisions correlate with
longevity. For instance, Tortoise cells divide 110 times, chicken cells
25 times, mice cells 15 times.

Best,

Jean-Louis