Are Seeds Alive and Living?

 

 A searching question popped into my mind last night: if seeds are living or dead? I searched the Internet for what others have to say.

Here are some of their answers, and I quote theirs in pink:  

 

• A seed is the embryo of a new plant and as such is a living thing, but in a dormant state, which requires being buried in soil or other suitable matter to trigger off the renewal process.

Jack Hill, St Albans England

• It has the potential for life when given the means, and it can die when it isn't given enough care, so I would say that it is.

Anonymous,

• Actually, the trigger is a combination of temperature, light and humidity. The matter around the seed is not important.

Katarina, Slovenia

• Seed is a product of a living thing but must decay to replace and produce another better or the same.

Tony, Lagos Nigeria

• Seeds are living because seeds need water, light and soil if you don't take care of them. It will die. Plants grow from seeds.

Tanya Francis, Wentworthville, Australia

• Seed of course contains life, as it is said as the embryo of a new plant. But think about the seeds which cannot germinate. Can we say in that condition, a seed as a living organism?

 

Thank you to all the above named for their opinion.

 

Let me now give my thoughts here as a scientist.

 

All life requires water. The human body for instance is made up of 60-75% of water by weight. Dehydration set in when there is a loss of 4 – 5 % water, and a loss of about 10 – 15 % may result in death.

Without water death occurs after 3 days for a human body caused by a daily obligatory urinary loss of water even though he may survive for months without food, depending on his body weight and store of body’s fats. Water is crucially vital for all forms of life that we know. 

 The loss of water from the body due to obligatory urine loss is approximately 500ml to 800 ml a day whether or not we drink. In adult men, about 60% of their bodies are water. A 70 kg man contains about 42 litres of water. The volume of blood is approximately 5.5 litres in each adult male and 4.5 litres in female. In other words, a human body does not last long without water when 500 – 800 ml of water is lost into the urine everyday even if he does not drink any water to replace this obligatory urinary loss.

So would all life including seeds that have been left without water for sometime. 

In chemistry, we also know water is made up of two positively charged hydrogen, and one negatively charged oxygen.  

When hydrogen combines with the oxygen, it generates an asymmetrical molecule with positive charge on one side and negative charge on the other side.  This charge polarity regulates how water interacts with other molecules in chemical reactions especially in the biochemical pathways of all life.

Its role as a universal solvent helps cells to transport oxygen, gasses, nutrients throughout the body, and the removal of toxic wastes accumulated through metabolism or from ingested toxins including ingested drugs. In fact, blood and all biological fluids are made up of water.

Not just the importance of water in the chemical and biochemical role in a living body, but water also has an imperative biological structural role in giving shapes to the cells and body structures by filling them with water.  The water in cells exerts hydrostatic pressure to give them shapes and prevents them from collapsing from external forces.

Some plants and seeds can maintain their cell structure without water, but they still require water to survive as far as I believe. We shall ask this question again towards the end.

 The crucial role of water allows all contents inside cells to have the right structure and for all biochemical reactions of life to be possible.  

Cells in the body consist of two layers of molecules called phospholipids. The phospholipids have a polar and a nonpolar end.  Phospholipids form bilayers with one end facing outward towards water and the other facing inward to repel water.

The bilayer enveloping the cells allows substances like salts and nutrients to enter and exit the cell. In the absence of water, cell membranes would not have the needed structure, and without the membrane structure, cells would be unable to maintain important life structures inside the cell.

Besides the structure and shape of cells, water also influences some fundamental components of every cell in life such as DNA, amino acids from proteins and sugars.  The amino acids as building blocks of proteins need to fold up into specific chemical configurations to function.

Water plays a role in the folding of amino acid chains into certain patterns with some types of amino acids avoiding interacting with water, and others requiring the presence of water. Proteins provide the structure involved in cellular signalling and catalyses biochemical reactions in the cell. Proteins are the mainstay of physiological functions besides their structural function. The contraction of muscles, cellular communication, immunological defences are some of the functions of proteins that are only possible in the presence of water.  

Proper shapes due to water, proteins, sugars and other life chemical components make life possible. In a similar vein, DNA necessitates to be in a specific configuration for its instructions to be properly decoded. Proteins read or copy DNA into a particular shape and are only possible in the presence of water.

The water molecules that surround the DNA in an orderly fashion support its characteristic double-helix conformation. Without water and shape, cells would not be able to follow the programmed instructions encoded by DNA or to pass the directives to dividing cells, making growth, reproduction, and, ultimately, survival of all life on earth possible. Thus, water is directly involved in many chemical reactions pertaining to the existence of life.

Even in plants, water is needed in photosynthesis for the synthesis of sugars, starches, cellulose and thousands of phytochemicals.  Water also contributes to building larger molecules like DNA and proteins. Contrariwise, water is also required for the reverse reaction that breaks down these molecules so that cells can obtain nutrients or repurpose pieces of big molecules. 

Water being a universal solvent is a versatile participant in most if not all chemical reactions. It can act as a hydrogen bond donor, acceptor, and even a proton (H+) donor or acceptor. This property empowers water to expedite chemical and biochemical reactions of life in various ways. The most significant role of water in chemical reactions is its role as a universal solvent. Without water, many chemical reactions cannot occur since water is a carrier for most of these life’s chemical reactions.

Furthermore, water buffers cells from the damaging effects of acids and bases if not balanced. Acids and bases release excess hydrogens or take up excess hydrogens, respectively, from the surrounding cells. Losing or gaining positively charged hydrogens dislocates the structure of molecules, especially proteins that require a specific structure to function appropriately. Thus, it is crucial to protect them from acids and bases imbalances.  

Water being neutral with pH 7 can buffer changes by acting as both an acid and a base. Even though the chemical bonds within a water molecule are very stable, it’s possible for a water molecule to give up a hydrogen and become OH–, thus acting as a base, or accept another hydrogen and become H3O+, thus acting as an acid.

This chemical adaptability and buffering action allow water to neutralize drastic changes of pH due to acidic or basic substances in the body. Eventually, this buffering protects proteins and other molecules in the cell.

In summary, water is vital to all life whether in a dominant seed or in an actively living organism. Its versatility and adaptability help perform important biochemical and chemical reactions. Its simple molecular structure consisting of hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, and life-giving oxygen helps maintain inner and outer shapes of cells and their membrane. No other molecule matches water that processes such unique universal properties that support life.

 New properties and additional effects of water such as its asymmetrical or crystalline structures of water as in ice and snow are being searched as health-protective and disease preventive. Scientists have yet to determine the physiological impacts of these structural properties with experimental data. It’s amazing how a simple molecule of water is universally so crucial for all living organisms with their diverse needs. 

 Water is truly a unique and an essential molecule with many special properties that make it crucial for the existence of life besides as a carrier of many chemical reactions outside life due to its ability to dissolve many substances, exhibit cohesion, regulates temperature and facilitate chemical reactions in chemistry, biology, physics and even in astronomy and astrobiology where scientists look for life elsewhere outside this world.

In astronomy for instance, one of the first criteria astronomers look for the presence of life in an extrasolar or exoplanet planet outside our solar system is the presence of water.

 The zone or distance from the star is called the habitable zone or Goldilocks Zone where there is water or water could exist. It should not be too close to the star where temperature is too hot for life to exist, where water will boil off, or too far from the star where water will freeze, and life may not be possible.  

The approximate radii of the Goldilocks Zone within the host star’s habitable zone are given by:

r_i = ( √ L star / 1.1)

r₀ = (L star / 0.53) 

Where:

r_i = the inner boundary of the habitable zone in astronomical units (AU)

r_o = the outer boundary of the habitable zone in astronomical units (AU)

L_star is the absolute luminosity of the star.

1.1  is a constant value representing stellar flux at the inner radius.

This brings us back to the question we asked in the beginning if seeds lying dormant and asleep without water for years are alive or not?  If there are alive then they still need water to maintain its structure and basal metabolic rate no matter how low their basal metabolic rates as in hibernation of animals such as turtles, snails, snakes, wood frogs, and groundhogs, skunks, hedgehogs, bumblebees, during winter.

There are of course bacteria that can thrive in extremely dry environments. They are not seeds, but xerotolerant microorganisms that are extremophiles that can survive in environments with extremely limited water.

There is a high diversity of xerotolerant bacteria that are found in many different extreme environments, including hot and cold environments, such as the Atacama and Antarctic deserts. These xerotolerant microorganisms survive in sheltered geological niches that allow their biological activity.

Their dormancy allows desiccation that enables them to react to sporadic cycles of rainfall and drought by remaining in an inert metabolic state most of the time. These xerotolerant bacteria use several physiological mechanisms to prevent cell disruption and water loss, including phospholipid modifications to maintain membrane fluidity, the secretion of water-retaining extracellular polymeric substances, and the accretion of compatible solutes that reserve the osmotic potential across their membrane.

These xerotolerant microorganisms, DNA and protein stability are crucial to ensure that cellular activity is resumed under favourable conditions. Thus, most molecular adaptations to xeric stress involve the upregulation of proteins that are stable under low water activity and that preserve their life-giving properties.

Then besides these bacteria that can thrive in extreme dryness, there are also desert animals such sidewinder snakes, Mexican coyotes, dung beetles, camels, fennec foxes and other desert animals that can thrive in almost waterless environments, but only for short periods.

But these are not seeds. They are living organisms with high content of water in them.

The water content in most seeds is between 10-15% only. This is far below than required for any metabolic activity. The soil moisture contents of 50 to 75 percent are usually required for seed to germinate into life. Thus, seeds before putting into moist soil are they dead or living? 

If seeds are dead, they will not spring alive even when given water or put back into the damp soil. 

See my other article:

“Can Life in Other Worlds Exist Without Water?” published on Sunday, October 16, 2022 here:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=is+water+needed+for+life

See also The Origin of Life here: 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=origin+of+life

 But if seeds are living, the water content in them is far too low to support life. There must be something else besides water that supports life.

Give this a thought with this verse:

“God “formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). 

Though the verse applies to the creation of Adam and Eve, the same applies to all living creatures that evolve from the soil that additionally has water in them.

Astronomers too concur that life on earth is made of (dry) stardust that arrived on this planet from the supernova explosion of a distant star.

But there is no water in star dusts, or in dried up seeds, or was it, it was dusts and water plus something else non-material and non-physical that make up life?

Seeds kept in warm places such as in sacks and plastic bags for years have very little or no water in them, and yet when they are put back into the soil from where they originally came, they sprout out life as a living plant. How would scientists like me explain this weird phenomenon?

I really can’t myself unless there is something more than just water that is “living” hidden inside the seeds.

This brings me back to the question if seeds like all living organisms including plants have a soul as a soul would not need water for its eternal existence? This unknown and undefined entity must have commanded the seeds with whatever water left in them and all life-giving chemicals they have to spring alive when they are actually dead.  

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea” meaning there is no water in another earth and heaven and yet there are souls and life there as given in Revelation 21:1

This also brings us back to the question if astronomers and astrobiologists may have been presumptuous in formulating the equations for their Goldilocks Zone for life existence in extrasolar planets or elsewhere in the Universe?

 I would leave the answer entirely to you as you would be more intelligent, more knowledgeble and more learned than anyone else to answer this life’s mystery for yourself.

Thank you gentle readers for sharing my thoughts 

 Lim ju boo 

 

Music, Music, Music. How are they written?

 

 

Almost the entire 8,000 million people on this earth have heard music except the very few who were born totally deaf to all sounds.

We hear music almost everywhere, over the radio, television, cinemas, in 5-star hotel reception halls, in elegant airports, shopping malls, sometimes even in the streets, buses, trains. Music is plenty for almost everyone, but very few know how music is written, read, interpreted, let alone played on a musical instrument. Perhaps if we were to conduct a population survey, we may be surprised although  all have heard music being played,  perhaps only 20 – 50 out of a 1,000 people can play some simple musical instruments such as those street musicians who can  strum on the guitar and tapping on his right foot while singing at the same time, or someone who blows on their harmonica to churn out a tune, does not mean they know music. They would have no clue how to read a single written musical note because almost none of them have musical education in school. They can only play by ear, but unable to read musical notes.

But those musicians who place sheet music (collectively known as a music score) in front of them, sitting on the stage in a elegant concert hall performing a symphony, or a soloist performing a violin or a piano concerto with a conductor conducting, these musicians can read music and they know music. This is the difference.  

Those who do are from rich and educated families who send their children to learn music such as the piano, violin, cello, flute, harp or other instruments and also learn how to read sheet music, the interpretation of their notes, instruction clearly printed on the musical scores. They learn music independently outside their school education.

Out of one million people in this world, possibly only about 10 or 30 can actually read musical notes and how to play them on a musical instrument. The rest of the world population only know how to hear or sing but have no clue how to play a musical instrument even by ear, let alone read the technical language of music being composed.

  Six months ago, I was playing my violin with an orchestra when a senior consultant surgeon old friend of mine was in the audience. About three months later I was playing my violin accompanied by a pianist when my surgeon friend was also there. Two days ago, he asked me if music can be written as:

do, re, mi, fa, so, la ti, doe, such as:  

do, a deer, a female deer.
re a drop of golden sun.
mi, a name I call myself.
fa, a long, long way to run.
so, a needle pulling thread,
la, a note to follow sew,
ti, a drink with jam and bread!
That will bring us back to do oh-oh-oh!

as sung by Julie Andrews who was the nanny to the seven von Trapp children in the movie "Sound of Music"

I told him music is not normally written in this way, but in a mixture of seven music notes – a b c d e f g that can be natural notes or with sharps or flats on the musical scale.

For example, on the four strings GDAE of a violin we may start with the G note on open G string, then A note, B note on the first and second fingers, on the 3^rd finger we go to middle C note, then on the 4^th finger the D note which is the same note on the next open D string.

Then on the next D string, we E F G notes, and third string A, then B (1^st index finger) and C (2^nd finger) close together as semitones, then D note (3^rd ring finger) and E note on 4^th little finger which is the same note as the next E open string.  

Before we proceed further let me admit what I write here is a very, very brief (perhaps 5%) run through on the theory of music. The theory of music must be written as a book or in several series of music books from elementary to advanced levels.

Of course, I told my surgeon friend he can sing “do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti do” at any pitch he wishes. He or anyone can repeat the same notes at the next octave (8^th note), but I don’t think any ordinary voice can go higher than after the second octave after middle C unless he or she is a tenor or a soprano where his or her voice may be able to climb above the third C note.

 Try this yourself on your voice using various pitches as if repeated in octaves.  But they can also be written to sound as Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and Si as the letters C, D, E, F, G, A, and B.

The notes can be arranged in any way a composer wishes so long it sounds harmonious. Most music written for cello is written on the bass clef, and so is for the bass instruments. There are written instructions that requires key signatures placed just after the treble or G clef as on instruments like the violin, flute, oboe, cor anglais, all clarinets, all saxophones, horn, trumpet, cornet, vibraphone, xylophone, mandolin, recorder, bagpipe, and guitar.

On the cello or bass instrument music is written on the bass clef with middle C between the lower bass clef and the upper treble (G) clef or treble staff.

Piano music is written in both treble clefs using the right hand on the white keys, and left hand for bass clef using the black keys

The notes a b c d e f g can either be neutral (natural) notes, or they need to be sharpened or flattened.

A sharp sign (#) raises the note by one half step or one semitone. A and B are a step apart, but A# and B are a half step apart.

Musical notes all look like sprouted beans with a stem, and often with little tails sticking out at the end of the stem. The round note is a semibreve or whole note, the white note with a stem is a minim or half note (1/2), the black note with a stem is called a crotchet or a quarter note (1/4), and the same black note with a stem but with a curved tail sticking at the end is a quaver or eighth note (1/8).

The timing and duration of a whole note is made of 2 minim, or 4 crotchets, or 8 quavers. There are of course shorter notes like semiquavers like a quaver except that it has two tails. Other shorter notes are demisemiquavers, for example, a semibreve has 32 demisemiquavers, a semiquaver has 2 demisemiquavers, a crotchet has 8 demisemiquavers, a minim has 16 demisemiquavers.

 

There are also rest symbols like a tiny black tile or block hanging above or below a ledger line for the duration of a semibreve rest. A semibreve rest hangs below the fourth line, and a minim rest hangs on the third line.  A crotchet rest is written differently in two ways. Unfortunately, I do not have the software to write all these musical symbols or other signs or symbols whether they were mathematical symbols or musical symbols as much as I wish to. I only have an ordinary home PC and a smartphone with limited applications to type only A – Z and 123456….   The semibreve rest hangs below the fourth leger line, and the minim rest sits on the top of the third leger line. We shall explain a ledger line shortly. Then there are also signs, instructions and symbols meant for various instruments such as arco to mean use the bow after a passage of pizzicato, pizzicato to mean pluck the string with a finger for the violin or a tie or a slur over or under the notes to mean all the notes to be played with one stroke of the bow either up or down. There are dozens of all these symbols or instructions and it is far beyond the scope of this short article for me to explain all of them.

All written music is broken up into bars with a bar line separating them and all. The entire music with the bars has time signatures such as 2/4. The top figure (2) in the time signature shows how many beats there are in a bar. For example, ‘2’ on the top shows there are 2 beats in each bar and is a double time. If the top number is ‘3’ there are 3 beats in each bar and is a triple time. If it is 4 such as 4/4, this means there are 4 beats in each bar and is a quadruple time. The bottom number of a time signature shows the value of each beat. For instance, in each of the following time signatures – 2/4, ¾, 4/4, the bottom number 4 stands for crotchet beats. Hence, there are 2 crotchet beats in 2/4, 3 crotchet beats in ¾ and 4 crotchets in 4/4.

 The beats and timing are the same throughout the entire written music.

A ledger line or leger line is used in Western musical notation to notate pitches above or below the lines and spaces of the regular musical staff. All notes on the Staff or Clef must be written exactly either with the ledger line passing through the notes, or in the spaces between the ledger lines.

A semitone (sometimes called a half tone or a half step) is the distance from a white key to a neighbouring black key on the piano keyboard—for example, from G to G-sharp or from E to E-flat.

A semitone in music is the smallest gap between two notes. It represents the distance of one half-step between one note and another. For example, if you start on the note C and move up one semitone, you will land on the note C# (C sharp) or Db (D flat), depending on how it is named in the specific context. In a normal musical scale where there is neither sharp or flat such as in C major or in A minor, B and C notes, and E and F notes are semitone apart. But F♯ and G, and G and G# are also semitone apart.

Example, when F note is raised one half step higher is F sharp written as F #, and C sharp as C #,   B flat as ♭ B, E flat as ♭ E, A flat as ♭ A… etc, etc... They are called major or minor scales... lots of them too long and technical to explain here.

All notes written exactly in the position in the spaces or across the ledger lines on either the treble or G clef or on the bass clef have precisely the same pitch, although the tone colour or tone quality termed as ‘timbre’ varies from musical instrument to musical instrument or voice to voice such as a violin sounds different from a flute, piano, harp, saxophone, clarinet. The timbre of a female voice differs from that of a male even for the same note. It also differs within the same sex and gender. For instance, the piano note middle C has a frequency of 261.63 Hz and this frequency for middle C is the same for all instruments theoretically although mixed sine waves of the same frequency may account for their tone colour or timbre.
 

Musician needs  to follow instructions written on the sheet music such as repeats given as D.S. al Coda, D. C. al Fine as end,  beside dozens of other written instructions given there, examples "dynamics, fermata, glissando, grace notes, octaves, ornaments, rest, slurs, staccato, tempo marks, tenuto and ties, tuplets, trill, harmonics, braces and bars, accidentals, bowing signs, grand staff, time signature" .... etc, etc, etc... a 1001 more symbols and other musical instructions depending on the musical instrument the musician plays. That is why as an example, we see violinists in an orchestra bowing up and down in unison with each other because they read the up (^) or down (v) bowing signs written there on their music scores.

The understanding of the theory of music may take a few years to learn.  They can rank from Grade 1 to Grade 8 and can cover many music theory books or published in many parts. So is the practice of music on a musical instrument that may take many hours a day to practise for many years.  Once again what I write here is a very, very brief idea, maybe just 5% how music is written.

Sorry to my surgeon friend,  music is not sung as do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti do like others who have no music education think

But music can also be written the Chinese way using 123456 instead of using alphabets

Using 1234567 is okay for singing simple tunes, but not for highly advanced western composition and  repertoires composed by great composers where a lot of other instructions are also printed there for the musician to follow, in which case it is better to use the western conventional musical notes

For example, music written as 123456 notations may have their limitations because often the style and movements of the music need to be written and expressed - how they need to be sung or played on a musical instrument, and not just sung using their simple natural notes. Then what about notes that need to be sharpened by a semi note such as C into C#, or flattened as B flat (♭ B)?  

Music written in numbers 1 to 7 represent musical notes (more accurately the scale degrees) always correspond to the diatonic major scale. For example, in the key of C, their relationship with the notes and the solfege (adiate, or mentally hear, the pitches of a piece of music and sung aloud) such as the notes C D E F G A B when sung orally corresponds to do re mi fa sol la ti which when written in figures or notation instead of in alphabets would be in numbers - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

An example of numbers used, instead of alphabetical notes is here:

“I Could Have Danced All Night” from “My Fair Lady”

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L_mY2ryI5NTZvj60io7NYVM69sT06CB2/view?usp=sharing

or it may also be written as alphabetical notes Here is an example of “I Could Have Danced All Night” arranged for both the violin and the piano

https://bearrivertheatre.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/7/9/117937594/336205732-i-could-have-danced-all-night-my-fair-lady.pdf

Let us give a few examples of conventionally written music below:

Here’s a” Song of India” composed by Rimsky Korsakov from the 1896 opera Sadko being sung here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5k-TaOmq5o

It can also be played on the piano here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK55ceFVY0M

However, I have also personally translated the same audible music from a video into a handwritten one as sheet music for the violin here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u6M-9OUHPfwrIjWD46Zb0qa7LefAhunk/view

 

Here is more music from CDs or from videos translated into handwritten sheet music:    

Fragrance of the Night video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ1X4zEKwZw

The written translation of the above “Fragrance of the Night” video is here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hMYclKk_LnLka7FA8hz2EfpbBgojMjmS/view

Military March by Franz Schubert, from this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKEiOiluqTY

into this written music is here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XucjNgo9-Y3IHTSDdXwGWKDmOkQB9M1R/view

Here is a beautiful violin piece called “Souvenir by F.Drdla” where  you may follow the musical notes as it is being played note-by-note.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbV3_XLbzyA

Since I do not have the software to write musical symbols as much as I wish to inside my blog using my personal PC or smartphone, you may get them from Google here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_symbols

Written music will have a key signatures such as the number of sharps (#) or flats (♭) written at the top of the sheet music just immediately after either the treble of bass clefs to mean all the same notes throughout the sheet or written music must either be in sharp or flat, unless there is an accidental sign (♮) somewhere along the written music to cancel out a particular note written only in that bar prescribed in the key signature for the entire music score. 

Accidentals are sharps (#) flats (♭) and natural (#) which are placed immediately to the left of the note in a tune. Their functions are: 

. A sharp raises a note a semitone - C to C#

. A flat lower a note a semitone - B down to B♭. 

. A natural puts a note back to its original pitch - C# to C♮ , B♭ to B ♮

Key signatures are either in sharps or flats but not a mixture of sharps and flats. 

For example, the scale of C major has no sharp

The scale of G major has one sharp (F #). The scale of D major has two sharps (F# C#), the scale of A major has three sharps (F# C# G#), and the scale of E major has four sharps (F # C# G# D#)   

There is a pattern of minor key signatures corresponding to the pattern of major-key signatures. For example:

No sharp or flat is A minor (C major)

1 sharp (F) ………… E minor (G major)

2 sharps (F C) …… B minor (D major)

3 sharps (F C G) …. F# minor (A major)

4 sharps (F C G D) … C# minor (E major)

5 sharps (F C G D A) … G# minor (B major)

6 sharps (F C G D A E) …D# minor (F# major)

 

1 flat (B)…D minor (F major)

2 flats (B E) … G minor (B flat major)

3 flats (B E A) … C minor (E flat major)

4 flats (B E A D) … F minor (A flat major)

5 flats (B E A D G) … B flat minor (D flat major)

6 flats (B E A D G C) … E flat minor (G flat major)

Then of course there is fast and slow music, and of certain beat, pace, tempo, and rhythm to be played.  These are written in the sheet music, examples:

Adagietto (rather slow, but faster than adagio), affettuoso (tenderly), allegro (quick and cheerful), andante (at a walking pace), brio (vigour), calando (getting softer), dolce (sweet and soft) … espressivo (expressive), felice (happy) … all the way down to tranquillo (calm) and vivace (lively and quick), mezzo forte means moderately loud, piano (p) means soft, staccato = short, detached, tempo = speed, time, ritardando ( ritard) = getting gradually slower… etc, etc, 1001 of these symbols and instructions far too many for me to write them here as this is not a book on the theory of music. It is just a very brief article to answer and to educate my surgeon friend who asked me about how music is written.

I have a music library containing thousands of compositions, some printed ones I bought from the United States or from the UK, some personally written or translated by me into notes from CDs or from videos.

 I started to play the violin when I was an undergraduate student while reading for my degree for some completely unrelated courses, but I only learned to play the flute a few years ago.

I have also previously joined an orchestra, and I used to be a member of the Symphony Club of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO)

"If music be the food of love, play on"

(William Shakespeare, from "Twelfth Night Night")

Music is just one of my love besides mathematics, sciences, medicine, nutrition, food and analytical food chemistry and microbiology, food quality control, astronomy, evolutionary biology, forensic science, toxicology and medical research.

But today I am more interested in the mystery of life, how it originated, chemically or spiritually, and where life or the soul goes when physical life ends.  

Lim ju boo

(3,242 words in 7 pages)

Aspirin, Salicylates, Turmeric and Curries in Cancer-Prevention

 

 

A senior consultant ENT surgeon friend of mine recently sent me a short WhatsApp note on neck cancer and mentioned about the benefits of aspirin in the prevention of cancer.

Here’s my extended explanation.

More than 30 years ago I already knew that the incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) among Scots in Scotland whose diet is high in meat and lamb (mutton) were more than 5 times higher than south Indians in India who eat a lot of curries. The same here in Malaysia where the incidence of CRC among Chinese who eat a lot of meat, less vegetables and almost no curry at all is more than 4 times that of local Indians and  is some 3 times higher than the Malays who eat some curry but less curries  than the Malaysian Indians.

Twenty  years later I told this to a few doctors in the Cancer Institute at Kuala Lumpur Hospital and they were surprised. They didn’t even know this. They then checked this up themselves and they were very surprised by what I told them. But they were doctors working in a cancer institute. I supposed they were more concerned about treatment of cancer than in cancer prevention.

As a nutritionist, my recommendation is to follow a dietary regimen like the Indians, high in curry with lots of vegetables. Additionally, it may also be CRC preventive by taking a low dose (100 mg daily) of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) daily since aspirin is both cardioprotective as well as CRC preventive.  An aspirin tablet is presented as a 300 mg dose, and hence half an aspirin daily after meals would suffice.

The incidence of colon cancer is the highest among all cancers in Malaysia, highest among Chinese, much lower among the Malays and least among the Indians.

However, incidence of CRC among Malaysian Indians is higher than those southern Indians in India. This is probably because Malaysia is a multiracial country where food habits and dietary patterns are often shared across the races. For instance, Malaysian Indian families often go to Chinese restaurants in large groups to eat Chinese food instead of consuming their wholly southern Indian curries like in their native India.

Here’s an interesting video on cancer prevention using anti-inflammatory drugs such as NSAID, especially the use of simple aspirin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlLgg50t_F4

Also, in a paper by Tanuja Rastogi, Susan Devesa, Punam Mangtani, Aleyamma Mathew, Nicola Cooper, Roy Kao, Rashmi Sinha on the cancer incidence rates among South Asians in four geographic regions: India, Singapore, UK and US published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 37, Issue 1, February 2008, Pages 147–160, the authors observed the lowest total cancer incidence rates in India (111 and 116 per 100 000 among males and females, respectively, age-standardized to the 1960 world population) and the highest among US whites (362 and 296). Cancer incidence rates among Indians residing outside of India were intermediate in Singapore (102 and 132), UK (173 and 179) and US ranges 152–176 and 142–164. A similar pattern was observed for cancers of the colorectum, prostate, thyroid, pancreas, lung, breast and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Following what I wrote about aspirin, another friend asked me this question:

Why the drug aspirin? How about spices instead?  What about turmeric supplements that are also easily available these days or even cayenne pepper or paprika?

My answer to this gentleman’s question is this:

I think turmeric is a better choice than purely aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) in the prevention of colorectal cancers (CRC) because turmeric along with curry powder, chilli, cayenne pepper, ginger, cinnamon, onions, are all rich in the natural form of salicylates rather than the synthetic aspirin.

Besides pure salicylates as in aspirin, turmeric also contains a lot of natural phytochemical compounds such as diarylheptanoids, including numerous curcuminoids, such as curcumin, demethoxycurcumin, and bisdemethoxycurcumin. Curcumin constitutes up to 3.14% of assayed commercial samples of turmeric powder (the average was 1.51%),

In contrast, curry powder, which is a mixture of many spices, contains much less salicylates (an average of 0.29%). Some 34 essential oils are present in turmeric, among them are turmerone, germacrenes, atlantone, and zingiberene. 1–6% of turmeric powder are curcuminoids and curcumin that gives turmeric the yellow colour. They all work together in synergism at low doses as a family. This synergistic action is prophylactically more effective and safer than aspirin working in isolation at higher doses.

Turmeric and curcumin have been studied in numerous clinical trials for various human diseases and conditions. The studies do show health-protective benefits but not strong evidence. For instance, there is no strong scientific evidence that curcumin reduces inflammation as previously thought, though there is weak evidence that turmeric extracts may be useful for relieving symptoms of knee osteoarthritis, as well as for easing pain and muscle damage following physical exercise.

The salicylate content of blood and urine was shown to increase following consumption of the meal containing salicylates, indicating that dietary source of salicylic acid was bioavailable.

In a study in India, the serum salicylic acid concentrations taken from villagers in southern India were compared with those of Europe. It was found that the salicylic acid levels in the serum from rural Indians were significantly (median almost 3-fold) higher than values previously measured in Western vegetarians. This may explain the low incidence of cancer in rural India where turmeric, curry powder, spices and a traditional vegetarian diet is consumed.

Aspirin is rapidly hydrolysed to salicylic acid and salicylates which are the natural compounds of turmeric, curries and spices.  

(920 words)

Does A Meat Diet Extends Human Life Span Against a Vegan / Vegetarian Diet?

 I received an article sent to me by Dato Dr Ong Eng Leong, PhD asking me for an answer, has eating meat become unfairly demonised as bad for your health? That’s the question a global, multidisciplinary team of researchers has been studying and the results are in - eating meat still offers important benefits for overall human health and life expectancy.

This nutrition and health claim Dr Ong sent to me for an answer is here:

 

https://www.adelaide.edu.au/newsroom/news/list/2022/02/22/meat-eating-extends-human-life-expectancy-worldwide

 

Dato Dr Ong asked:

 

“Dear Dr JB Lim, can this be true? That Meat of small and large animals provided optimal nutrition to our ancestors who developed genetic, physiological, and morphological adaptations to eating meat products and we have inherited those adaptations” - Emeritus Professor, Maciej Henneberg

This question was both a surprise and a challenge to me.

Like most people, we expect a vegetarian diet to be more health-protective than a diet from derived from animal sources, such as beef, poultry, eggs, mutton, fish and seafoods.

Most of us would believe a plant-based diet is rich in antioxidants and phytochemicals, vitamin C, minerals generally absent in meat and animal products.

However, we cannot ignore scientific evidence with clear data presented to us, no matter what our thoughts.

I thought this over, and I decide to present my own analysis here in blue:  

................................................

 

The study did not tell us the nature, types, make-up, and composition of the vegetarian diet. This is extremely important in deciding whether they are life supporting and health protective. Meat, eggs and poultry are high in proteins, not just high in content, but in biological values.

Before we go further, let me briefly explain the role of proteins in human nutrition.

Proteins are made up of amino acids. They are the basic building blocks of proteins, the compounds that synthesize hormones and neurotransmitters in our bodies. Amino acids help our bodies to grow, repair body tissue, maintain immunity and produce hormones that maintain body functions.

There are 20 (or 21) amino acids that make up tens of hundreds into thousands of different types of proteins, all of which are required for growth and development by the human body. They all support life and body functions. They produce immunoglobulins among other hormones and enzymes, and they are disease protective, besides perhaps longevity as well. These amino acids are:

Alanine, arginine, asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic acid, glutamine, glycine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, proline, serine, threonine, tryptophan, tyrosine, valine, and selenocysteine (same as cysteine).

Out of these 20 amino acids only nine of them are classified as essential amino acids, namely:  phenylalanine, valine, tryptophan, threonine, isoleucine, methionine, histidine, leucine, and lysine.

The term “essential amino acids” means these amino acids cannot be synthesized by the body, and they must be obtained from food sources. “Essential” does not mean only these 9 are essential, and the rest are not essential.  All the amino acids are required to make a protein complete and wholesome, and most of them are found in meat. Vegetables lack essential amino-acids, especially lysine, a sulphur containing amino-acids which is very rich in beef and meat products.

Unfortunately, lysine cannot be synthesized by the body, and neither cereal grain, nuts and seeds have them. But legumes have them. Hence, when we say the limiting amino acids in cereal grain such as rice is lysine, we mean lysine is lacking in rice and this limits the biological value of rice as a complete protein which must be obtained from meat, and legumes.

Hence a meat diet is better than a vegetarian diet if a vegetarian or a vegan solely depends on one type of vegetable. But if a vegetarian / vegan mixes his diet with various types of vegetables, cereal grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes its nutritive (protein) quality is as good as meat. In this way there would be no difference in the status of health and longevity between a meat-eater and a vegetarian / vegan who has a mixed plant-based diet.

A legume refers to any plant from the Fabaceae family that includes its leaves, stems, and pods. A pulse is the edible seed from a legume plant. Pulses include beans, lentils, and peas. For example, a pea pod is a legume, but the pea inside the pod is the pulse.

In short, if the limiting amino acid in a vegetable diet is lysine and threonine, it must be complemented in a diet rich in legumes, pulses, nuts, and seed. Similarly, if a vegetable diet where the limiting amino acid is methionine this can be made wholesome when mixed with grains, nuts, and seeds.

By combining vegetarian protein sources, we can ensure that we are getting all the 9 essential amino acids that would make the protein with high biological values. Protein complementation does not have to be done at the same meal. If beans are for lunch and then if a person had some raw almonds for a snack later, that would have added methionine into it across the day.

A mixed vegetarian diet can provide all the vitamins, minerals, and amino acids the body needs. Deficiency in methionine and cysteine results in atrophy of the thymus, spleen, and lymph nodes in mice and prevents recovery from protein-energy malnutrition.

Sulphur-containing amino-acids are methionine, cysteine, and phenylalanine. Methionine, cysteine, homocysteine, and taurine are the 4 common sulphur-containing amino acids, but only the first 2 are incorporated into proteins.

Grains, such as wheat, rice, oats, cornmeal, barley, and corn, are low in essential amino acid lysine in comparison to other essential amino acids. Legumes, such as beans, lentils, and peas, are also low in lysine. 

 Lysine is a vital amino acid in human and animal feeding, and it is present in high quantities in beef, poultry, and dairy products, although it is found in small amounts in plant proteins. Lysine does not contain sulphur.

Some African countries, especially in poor rural areas, rely on cassava, maize and corn as their staple diet. Such a staple diet seriously lacks tryptophan, which is also the precursor to niacin synthesis, a deficiency of which causes pellagra we shall discuss shortly.

But by combining vegetarian protein sources, we can ensure that we are getting all the 9 essential amino acids. That would make the protein with high biological values. Protein complementation does not have to be done at the same meal. If beans are for lunch and then we had some raw almonds for a snack later, that would have added methionine into it across the day.

A mixed vegetarian diet can provide all the vitamins, minerals, and amino acids the body needs. Deficiency in methionine and cysteine results in atrophy of the thymus, spleen, and lymph nodes in mice and prevents recovery from protein-energy malnutrition.

Maize for instance lacks tryptophan which can be converted into niacin (vitamin B3). A diet consisting mainly or purely on maize resulting in children suffering from both kwashiorkor and pellagra. Babies fed solely on maize and no milk results in high infant mortality and shortening their lives greatly.

Vegetarians and vegans in more affluent countries who complement their diet with legumes and pulses they can afford, give their diet high nutritive quality. Such a diet is in par or even better than those who are mainly meat eaters.

 Similarly, in poor rural communities in India they may depend mainly on rice, carbohydrates, surgery foods or wheat such as chapati flatbread, paratha sweet pastry, etc as some studies showed. Such a diet as a staple is nutritionally inadequate and can shorten life expectancy greatly compared to meat eaters, whereas a rich traditional Indian diet consumed by the more affluent Indian city dwellers may have a variety of whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables, each contributing significantly to health benefits. Generally, a vegetable diet is deficient in cyanocobalamin or vitamin B12. A deficiency of vitamin B12 can cause macrocytic anaemia, often presented as fatigue and pallor. 

Pernicious anaemia is a relatively rare disorder due to dietary vitamin B12 (cobalamin) malabsorption, resulting in megaloblastic anaemia.

A meat-based diet is better than a vegetarian diet if the vegetarian or vegan solely depends on one type of vegetable. But if a vegetarian mixes his diet with various types of vegetables, cereal grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes it is as good as eating meat.  I would expect there would be no difference between a meat-eater and a vegetarian / vegan who has a mixed plant-based diet in life expectancy.

Consider a cow. A cow eats mainly grass. But its body's biological efficiency can convert the the grass proteins into first class beef though not very efficient.  To a human, we cannot eat grass, but even if we have the cellulase to break down the cellulose in grass, we still are unable to get the amino acids into proteins. 

We shall talk more on this later. 

In another study "Total Meat Intake is Associated with Life Expectancy: A Cross-Sectional Data Analysis of 175 Contemporary Populations”.

by Wenpeng You, Renata Henneberg,  Arthur Saniotis,  Yanfei Ge,  and Maciej Henneberg  given here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8881926/ it showed the same

Part of the above papers says:

“Meat has advantages over food of plant origin in containing complete protein with all essential amino acids, is rich in vitamins, in particular vitamin B₁₂, and all essential minerals. It has a significant role not only for maintenance of health, development and proper growth but also has played an important evolutionary role in ancestral hominins for approximately 2.6 million years.

Benefits of meat eating include better physical growth and development, optimal breastfeeding of neonates, and offspring growth. Human adaptation to meat eating and mechanisms to digest and metabolise meat have been supported by studies in human dietary evolution. This may also be reflected in the importance of meat eating for human’s whole life span. Culturally, meat production and eating have also been integrated into human societies.

 Before agriculture was introduced (circa 11–9000 years ago), human ancestors could not grow, harvest, and store the majority of plant-based products as the staple food. Plant foods are mostly accessible only in particular seasons of the year. Contrariwise, animals, including large game, small animal, fish, and some insects, could constantly provide humans with meat as the staple food.

 

 

Although modern agriculture diversifies our diet components and offers us many food choices, meat is still one of the significant food components worldwide. Modern nutritional science has revealed that meat provides complete nutrition. Modern food technology is capable of producing artificially all meat components, so that in special situations complete meat contents can be introduced into a diet without including actual muscle tissue of animals. This, however, does not argue against the benefits of eating meat. On the contrary, it supports that meat contents are necessary for good human nutrition. Availability of artificially produced meat may provide a solution for people who are ethically opposed to killing animals”.

The authors examined the association between meat intake and life expectancy at a population level based on ecological data published by the United Nations agencies. The method they used in the study was based on population-specific data obtained from 175 countries/territories. Scatter plots, bivariate, partial correlation and linear regression models were used with SPSS 25 to explore and compare the correlations between newborn life expectancy, life expectancy at 5 years of life and intakes of meat, and carbohydrate crops, respectively. The established risk factors to life expectancy – caloric intake, urbanization, obesity, and education levels – were included as the potential confounders.

The results of their study worldwide, based on bivariate correlation analyses revealed that meat intake is positively correlated with life expectancies. This relationship remained significant when influences of caloric intake, urbanization, obesity, education, and carbohydrate crops were statistically controlled. Stepwise linear regression selected meat intake, not carbohydrate crops, as one of the significant predictors of life expectancy. In contrast, carbohydrate crops showed weak and negative correlation with life expectancy.

They concluded that if meat intake is not incorporated into nutrition science for predicting human life expectancy, results could prove inaccurate.

However, the authors made no mention of the vegetarian diet in quantity or quality in their study group except ‘worldwide’. Neither was there any mention of specic countries involved in the study. If they have made a worldwide study, I expect they would have included India that has the second largest population in the world, most of them are poor communities living in rural India subsisting on poor vegetarian diets especially among the Hindus. So, are in the African countries which are second most populous in the continent after Asia.

Had the study identified poor rural communities such as in India and Africa or even Yemen where they live on poor quality plant-based diet lacking not just in proteins and calories, but also in most of the vitamins and minerals, we can expect such populations suffer from marasmus and kwashiorkor in children along with most of the other deficiency diseases like night blindness, clinically or sub clinically xerophthalmia, other spectrum of ocular manifestations of vitamin A deficiency, Bitot spots to the potentially blinding stages of corneal xerosis, ulceration and necrosis (keratomalacia), beriberi from thiamine deficiency, pellagra, rickets, all the way down to multiple deficiency disorders with consequences of much shorter life spans as compared to meat consumers or in population that thrives on  a good mixture of vegetarian diet we can expect in more affluent vegetarian cultures.  

But unfortunately, this was not shown in the studies except gross comparison between a vegetarian diet and those from meat, fish and animal products. Such a study renders the conclusion highly questionable.     

The current population of Africa is 1,472,537,717 as of Tuesday, November 7, 2023, based on the latest United Nations estimates. So are many poor highly populated countries where undernutrition are rampant that includes Nigeria with a population of 223,804,632, Ethiopia with a population of 125,527,050, Egypt with 112,716,598 people and also in Yemen a very poor country where undernutrition with protein-energy malnutrition is still very rampant as it was in the 1960’s. These countries cannot afford a rich meat-based diet, but poor-quality cereal grains that may have grossly affected their health and subsequent lifespan.

When we think of protein rich foods, we probably visualise meat, eggs, beans and the like. However, animals that eat almost exclusively grass, such as cows and horses, have no problem getting enough protein in their diet. Unlike humans, herbivores are capable of digesting plant cells and getting to the nutrients locked inside, like protein.

Humans cannot eat grass of course unlike cows, sheep, goats, moose, camels, deer, giraffes, and buffalos. We are unlike herbivore ruminants that have a four-chambered stomach. They harbour millions of cellulolytic microbes such as Fibrobacter succinogenes, Ruminococcus flavefaciens, and Ruminococcus albus in their rumens that can break down cellulose into sugars and realizing proteins and other nutrients trapped in the grass or leaves.

But how much protein are there in grass and leaves we are unable to digest?

 Plants belonging to the Fabaceae family such as clover, peas and legumes have impressively high protein contents. Most plants have a mean leaf protein content of 4 to 6% w/v. Fabaceae plants such as clover, peas and legumes tend to have nearly double that value at 8 to 10% v/w, depending on the protein estimation method employed. 

Moringa leaves are a step ahead due to their exceptionally high protein content of 8% for fresh leaves, and 30% for dehydrated leaves. The quantity of protein in grass that cows eat to convert them into meat varies typically from 16-28%, depending on the sward type, growth stage, fertiliser regime and time of the year. Occasionally, protein levels in grass dip as low as 11-12%.

Typically, grass has 33 calories per 100 grams (roughly 4 calories per ounce) and 3.3 grams of carbohydrates, 2.2 grams of protein and a whopping 4.6 grams of fiber.

In this link below:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/feed-required-to-produce-one-kilogram-of-meat-or-dairy-product

We see cows are the least efficient in converting grass or other feeds and fodder proteins into meat (beef). It requires 25 kg of feed to get one kg of beef. This is only 4 % efficient. The quantity of protein in grass that cows eat to convert them into meat varies typically from 16-28%, depending on the sward type, growth stage, fertiliser regime and time of the year. Occasionally, protein levels in grass dip as low as 11-12%.

The conversion efficiency is followed by mutton or lamb that requires 15 kg feeds or fodder (6.7 %) to get their meat, then pork at 6.4 kg (15.6 %), poultry 3.3 kg (30 %), eggs at 2.3 kg (43.5 %), and whole milk that requires only 0.7 kg of feeds (143 %) which of course is mainly water.

However, we can extract these proteins and use them for human nutrition for poor countries suffering from protein malnutrition. Plants belonging to the Fabaceae family such as clover, peas and legumes have high protein content. Most plants have a mean leaf protein content of 4 to 6% w/v. Fabaceae plants have nearly double that value at 8 to 10% v/w. Moringa leaves are a step ahead due to their exceptionally high protein content of 8% for fresh leaves, and 30% for dehydrated leaves.

In 1957 NW Pirie, working at the Rothamsted Experimental Station in England managed to extract protein from leaves using specially-designed machinery. He showed leaf proteins have high nutritive values and can be added into animal feeds or incorporated into the diets for humans.  

Although it is possible to extract leaf proteins on a commercial scale for human consumption as shown by Dr NW Pirie at the Rothamsted Experimental Station in the UK, would a mass of tasteless proteins from leaves be acceptable to most human taste? Food choice, food acceptance and food taboos are one of the most difficult hurdles nutritionists face.

But I think in order to prolong our lifespan longer it is for us to restrict food intake, especially caloric intake.  

As early as the 1910s it was found that restricting food intake prolongs lifespan. It was not until the early 1930s (around 1935) that Clive Maine McCay, a professor of animal husbandry at Cornell University, started his study of this topic and promoted it as a productive research program in the multidisciplinary science of gerontology. Initially, McCay observed that when rats were put on a very low-calorie diet, he and his colleagues showed that their lifespan was extended from three to four years which is a 33 % increase.

Subsequently over the years numerous experiments on other animals have consistently shown the same result.

A paper on human nutrition published below looks at the effects of “Calorie Restriction and Aging in Humans”.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9042193/

This may seriously affect the authors of the study conclusion despite very elegant statistical analysis done showing positive and negative correlation with good correlation coefficient, a statistical measure of the strength of a linear relationship between two variables.

However, they gave no figure on the odds ratio (OR) which is a measure of association between a (dietary) exposure and a (lifespan) outcome.

In the study the authors mentioned before agriculture was introduced (circa 11–9000 years ago), human ancestors could not grow, harvest, and store most plant-based products as the staple food.

My view is, the hunter-gatherer culture is a type of subsistence lifestyle that relies on hunting and fishing animals and foraging for wild vegetation and other nutrients like honey, for food. Until approximately 12,000 years ago, all humans practiced hunting-gathering. In such a human evolutionary socio-economic scenario, I would expect our ancestors already were omnivorous by nature 12,000 years ago.

Agrarian civilization and early agriculture already began 8,000 years ago with domestication of cattle 6,000 years ago and the domestication of horses 6,000 years ago, and iron tools used 3,000 years ago. There is no evidence that humans ever subsist entirely on plant-based or animal foods. We have not much clue how long ancient humans live except those given in Genesis in the Bible. The early patriarchs often lived to be nearly 1,000 years old and even had children when they were several hundred years old!

For instance, Methuselah lived for 969 years, Jared 962 years old, Noah was 950 years old, Adam, 930 years, Seth 912 years, Kenan 910 years, Enos 905 years, Mahalalel 895 years, Lamech 777 years, and Enoch was 365 years old before he died. We have no clue what they ate for longevity.
The oldest person in the Bible, Methuselah was Noah’s grandfather and his father walked so closely with God that God took him. Methuselah died the same year as the flood, living to 969 years of age.

Whatever our answers, since the 1930s Clive Maine McCay, a professor of animal husbandry at Cornell University has shown that caloric restriction in rats greatly prolongs their lifespans.  So did other scientists from fields such as biochemistry, pathology, immunology, genetics, neuroscience, and nutrition have studied the relation of dietary caloric intake to longevity and aging. Their results are consistently the same whether fed on a vegetable or on a meat diet. It was the caloric restriction that matters.

Finally, in a good and reliable scientific study normally, we would pay a lot of attention to the study design, methodology of sample collection, materials, and methods as the first as the most important criteria. If there are biases and flaws in the sampling, material and methods used, then no matter how elegant, impressive, and sophisticated our data analysis were, the entire study, its conclusion is unreliable and inconclusive.

In summary, I do not think it matters if we are vegetarians or vegans whose diet is solely plant-based or if we are meat eaters that can extend our life span. Neither does it matter if the proteins of an entirely vegetarian or vegan diet is of high or poor quality compared to meat, nor would it matter if we extract the protein from plants, leaves and vegetables to make it like what ruminant cattle naturally eat, after which we consume their meat of high protein quality that would increase our longevity.

 I believe finally it would be restricting eating especially restricting caloric intake that would not just prolong our human life span, but it will prevent all the scourges of ill health and morbidities of modern society caused by our dietary and other lifestyles that bring about chronic and degenerative diseases like abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, impaired fasting glucose, high triglyceride levels, low HDL cholesterol levels, gout, cardiovascular events among other metabolic syndromes, and probably cancers as well.   

This is my opinion.

Thank you for your question, Dato Dr Ong Eng Leong.

 

 (A 3,783 worded answer in 8 pages)

 

Lim ju boo BSc MD Postgrad Dip Nutrition, MSc, PhD (Med), FRSPH, FRSM