 392  Urgent and efficient measures are needed to decrease the quantities of harmful waste thrown into the sea. All the states of northern Europe would agree with that, of course, but many aspects of the problem remain unsolved. So far as the Baltic is concerned, the states along its shores have worked out a convention to prevent its pollution. SCIENTISTS FIGHT OLD AGE At the Institute of Gerontology in Kiev scientists are waging an offensive against old age. We begin to age far earlier than we think. The process of "descending development" begins in the early thirties. As a biological species, man ought to live 100-120 years, but for various reasons we lose the last 30 or 40. We can now, however, to some extent, lengthen life. In experiments on animals, we have learned to prolong it by a third or more. One aspect of the institute's work is the discovery and testing of substances which will produce a physiological effect - combinations of vitamins which the aging body needs and preparations with microelements and amino-acids. Some of these are giving promising results. Old age is a contradictory process. On the one hand, the body adapts itself in some ways, while, on the other, certain faculties atrophy and die, It appears that our brains and muscles tend to stay young the more actively and regularly we use them. A correctly chosen profession, doing as much work as we are fit for, sensible meals and purposeful, not passive, leisure are all things that help the body adapt. It has long been remarked that there are in the world some places where people live longer, are less frequently ill, and are able to work almost to the end of their days. The Kiev Institute of Gerontology has examined some 40,000 people aged 80 and over. They questioned centenarians (that is, people over 100 years old) about themselves, and also about their forebears and the way they lived, what they ate, what work they did, and so on. The laboratory of social gerontology has summed up the work done by over a thousand doctors. They found, for instance, that as a rule centenarians live in rural areas, arid that more than half of them are engaged in farming. Only one in twelve of them are vegetarians, but half never smoke or drink anything alcoholic. It is interesting that very few of them have been divorced. The Kiev institute is engaged in joint undertakings with doctors m other countries. 392 |
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