Balneotherapy and healthy ageing - review

“To be forever young doesn’t mean to be 20. It means to be optimist, to feel good, to have an ideal to fight for and to achieve it” said Prof. Ana Aslan. Human ageing and longevity are complex and multi-factorial traits that result from a combination of environmental, genetic, epigenetic and stochastic factors. Ageing refers to the time sequential deterioration including weaness, susceptibility to disease, loss of mobility and agility. INTRODUCTION Ageing is a degenerative process, extensively studied for which many theories have been formulated. Ageing is the major biomedical challenge of our society, considered as a progressive and irreversible set of structural and functional changes for a living organism. The percentage of elderly people, the demographic imbalanced pyramids and the incidence of age-related diseases such as cardio-vascular diseases, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases are main concerns for many scientists. There are 10 questions about ageing: 1) How does ageing and longevity vary between species?; 2) How does ageing evolve? 3) Are ageing and longevity controlled by the genome? 4) Can aging be suppressed and lifespan increased? 5) What is the basis of ageing and longevity? 6) How does cellular senescence contribute to ageing? 7) How does ageing give rise to ageing-related disease? 8) Why does the immune system fail in ageing? 9) What are the prospects for treatments for ageing? 10) What should the aims of ageing research be? Healthy ageing should ideally start in childhood and take a lifelong perspective. Yet it is never too late to start. Investing in prevention can have important benefits for the individuals involved and has also societal benefits, since it is better to finance effective strategies to prevent diseases than to use the resources to cure them [6]. Combining the balneotherapy with using products with healthy-ageing effect provides a significant advantage and represents the sustainability of the strategies for healthy ageing, in the context of which the spas is the ideal place for the application of new treatments.Darwin’s theory proposes survival and reproductive capacity as factors driving evolution. He assumed that all living organisms have the capacity for evolution, by means of natural selection, and that this capacity was a constant. Richard Dawkins, author of “Selfish gene” says that genes are actually struggling for survival. Animals and humans are “survival machines” whose purpose is to propagate their genes. Evolvability theory refers to the idea that populations and species can vary in their capacity for evolution. Evolvability considerations provide explanations for programmed ageing and other lifespan limiting characteristics. Ageing is intrinsically complex, being driven by multiple causal mechanisms, inclusive mutations. Each mechanism tends to be partially supported by data indicating that it has a role in the overall cellular and molecular pathways underlying the ageing process. Even in a population free of ageing, death will nonetheless occur, from extrinsic hazards as disease, predators, and accidents. Balneo Research Journal DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12680/balneo.2014.1066 Vol.5, No.2, May 2014 63 Ageing evolves as a side effect of natural selection in favour of mutations that cause a benefit during youth The Pleiotropy or Trade-off Theory for the Evolution of Ageing. There are mutations that are beneficial in youth, but at the price of a higher rate of ageing. More individuals will survive to express the early benefit than will survive to suffer the higher rate of ageing. Regarding The How of ageing question, one of the first theories is „The rate of living theory” – after which: „ the duration of life varies inversely as the energy expenditure, the length of life depends on the rate of living” as in the case of Drosophyla. Unlocking the capacity to manipulate human ageing would result in great health benefits. Currently, health is understood as the removal of diseases in a defensive manner to the pathological process and with higher costs. Understanding how the environment modulates ageing-related genes may lead to human applications and disease therapies through diet, lifestyle, or pharmacological interventions. The study of the mechanisms by which various natural health factors can influence the ageing process opens the path to design and obtain new products for healthy ageing. For the cellular level, Hayflick limit express that cell replication slows and stops after about 50 passages, becoming senescent. Research on healthy ageing interventions has evolved along the main theories of ageing. Pharmacological intervention to decelerate ageing and agerelated diseases is highly attractive. The potential for further advances in this field is immense; hundreds of genes in several pathways have recently emerged as regulators of ageing and caloric restriction. One well-studied dietary manipulation of ageing is caloric restriction, which consists of restricting the food intake of organisms without triggering malnutrition. Caloric restriction is already being used as a paradigm for developing compounds that mimic its life-extension effects with therapeutic value. Reducing calorie intake has been shown experimentally to induce anti-ageing behavior in many species. Lifespan extension possibility was demonstrated for many geroprotector substances: Gerovital prepared by Ana Aslan, resveratrol, Rapamycin, antioxidants, hormones, bioregulatory peptides, metformin, fenformin and adaptogens (ginseng). As mechanisms have been observed reduced plasma levels of insulin, increased insulin receptor sensitivity, low body temperature, cholesterol, triglycerides, alphalipoproteins, blood pressure. All these processes are correlated with the expression of genes called sirtuins. Rapamycin, described as an immunosuppressive drug has been shown to be also an anti-ageing drug whose goal is the mTOR a serine/threonine kinase that regulates cell growth, viability, mobility, protein synthesis and gene transcription. Among the many hormones with geroprotector effects, estrogen-like or testosterone-like substances, detected also in the organic component of therapeutical peloids, stimulate or inhibit various neuroendocrine mechanisms. If insulin and cortisol serum levels are increasing with age, the testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, growth hormone and thyroid hormones level gradually decrease along with age, which causes progressive muscle atrophy, fatigue, osteoporosis, reduced sexual function and increased fat levels. Free radicals are continuously produced in the human body, as they are essential for energy supply, detoxification, chemical signaling and immune function. Reactive oxygen species have been found to play an important role in the initiation or progression of various diseases such as atherosclerosis, inflammatory injury, cancer and cardiovascular disease. An imbalance between antioxidants and reactive oxygen species results in oxidative Balneo Research Journal DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12680/balneo.2014.1066 Vol.5, No.2, May 2014 64 stress, leading to cellular damage. Air pollutant such as car exhaust, cigarette smoke, and industrial contaminants constitute major sources of ROS that attack and damage the organism. Herbs, diet, lifestyle, and supplements can slow ageing, enhance memory, help prevent cancer and heart disease. Medicinal plants (many used as spices and food plants) contain organic compounds as tannins, alkaloids, carbohydrates, terpenoids, steroids and flavonoids, which produce physiological effects. Antioxidants intervene in gerossuppression based on the ageing free radical theory. Resveratrol present in grapes and subsequently in red wine, is a natural phytoalexin used by certain plants in the defense mechanism against pathogens. Resveratrol caused a statistically significant decrease of age-related parameters such as albuminuria, inflammatory level, vascular endothelial apoptosis, and the incidence of cataract, at rats. A healthy diet should provide the different nutrients one needs to remain healthy and should give the opportunity to engage socially and to have a good quality of life. However, the precise dietary needs of the older people are still largely unknown. Peloids used also in the treatment of various rheumatic, endocrine, dermatological or gynecological diseases, represent the support for the design of new geroprotectors. "Peloidextract" obtained from Techirghiol mud is a clear liquid, with an alkaline pH of 7.6 to 8, and mineral content closely comparable to that of blood serum. Humic compounds play a role in redox reactions, absorption, complexation and transport of substances. Humic acids have an astringent effect, antiallergic, antiviral, antibacterial, antiinflammatory, estrogenic, hyperemic, UVprotective and are heavy metal chelatingagents. Fulvic acids have antitumoral, antiallergic, antioxidant and antimicrobial activity, acting in acid medium by inhibiting mitochondrial respiration in Candida utilis, have antiulcerogenic and precognitive properties so they can be used to treat Alzheimer's disease.