SHANGHAI (Reuters) - The fountain of youth, the age-old dream, may not be out of reach. Chinese medical researchers say they have found herbal medicines effective in slowing down the inexorable process of aging.

Dr. Shen Ziyin and his associates are putting traditional Chinese prescriptions for boosting the immune system through vigorous clinical tests and DNA research. Trained in western medicine and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shen has spent four decades on basic research integrating Chinese and western medical theories.

Western scientists say the accelerated demise of T cells--the cells which regulate immunity and control the production of antibodies--is a key cause of aging, but there is still no prescription for slowing down the process, Shen said.

Researchers have found that older people produce more T cells with a molecule known as Fas, or CD95. Another molecule, known as a ligand, groups Fas molecules together and leads to a process in which a cell self-destructs.

Shen said the only way known to decelerate the production of T cells with Fas is by slowing the whole body's metabolism through minimal calorie intake. "For an active person, to be constantly in a starving and woozy state is hardly a trade-off for living longer," he said.

"We hope to use medical intervention to check the ravage by Fas." Shen said aging was not only a personal health issue but had a social and economic dimension. "To live long, one has to live well."

More than 10 percent of China's 1.3 billion people are 60 years or older, and the number is forecast to rise to 400 million, or a quarter of the total population, by the middle of this century.

In ancient Chinese medicine, "shen"--literally meaning "kidney"--refers to a system that regulates the body's metabolism. (The name Shen and the word "shen" are not related.)

If the "shen" functions badly, the body's clockwork is thrown out of kilter. A patient, regardless of natural age, exhibits symptoms of backache, hair loss, weakness at the knees and low immunity, common to the elderly.

Premature aging is often found among middle-aged patients suffering from chronic illnesses, which could respond to treatment aimed at nurturing the "shen."

Shen hypothesised that the Chinese herbal elixirs for boosting the immune system could also slow down natural aging.

In clinical studies of more than 1,000 cases in seven Chinese cities, Shen compared patients taking the shen-boosting medicine, which consisted of some common pharmaceutical plant extracts, roots and berries, to those taking another type of Chinese medicine for improving blood circulation and those taking placebos. The results showed that only the first group made significant improvement in strengthening the immune system, Shen said.

The research on aging took a giant stride in the 1990s with the advance of modern DNA studies, Shen said.

Risking oversimplification, he said Chinese medicine takes a holistic approach to diagnostics before zooming in on a particular illness, while western medicine starts from the particulars to arrive at a whole understanding of the human body.

"A comprehensive map of the genes provides an objective framework and a common language for all researchers," he said. "The DNA research has opened a whole new vista that may finally give scientific explanation to the practices we have known for centuries."

An international team of scientists announced this week it had completed a draft map of 97 percent of the human genome after a decade of research. Shen and his team are now repeating his earlier experiment on laboratory mice to examine what factors are involved in the production of T cells with Fas.

He hoped to combine this new data with his previously published work on the effectiveness of the elixir and present it to the international medical community.

Using accepted western science techniques to back up his traditional medicine findings is important since the basic research of Chinese medicine is unfamiliar to most western scientists, Shen said. "Our research must be able to stand scrutiny in the light of the latest scientific development," he said.

(From Healthcentral.com )