Our heart becomes smaller and harder with aging. The muscles of the heart become hard, causing the heart not to move well. That causes shortness of breath by going up stairs a little bit or makes easy to get tired. If it gets worse, serious heart failure happens, which causes sudden death.
 
The substance making our heart soft is SOD (Superoxide dismutase) which is a type of enzyme in our body is an enzyme that repairs cells and reduces the damage done to them by superoxide, the most common free radical in the body. So if you can secrete SOD a lot, you can keep your heart soft.
 
According to 10 years of a research, the death rate due to heart failure among the people who secrete a lot of SOD was one sixth of the people who didn’t secrete SOD very well.
 
The heart starts becoming hard from the age of 30s.
 
If the muscle of the heart becomes hard, the amount of blood pumped out by one pulsation decreases so the amount of blood delivered to the body always becomes short. Blood contains oxygen and nutrition which are required to maintain life. The decrease of delivered blood causes lack of oxygen and nutrition in the whole body, resulting in shortness of breath, fatigue or in the worst case, sudden death due to heart failure.
 
The amount of blood pumped out from the heart is 7000 liters (35 steel drums) per day. If the heart is hard, the amount of blood pumped out from the heart decreases by 1/3 (about 12 steel drums).
 
According to a research in National Institute of Aging in US, as a result of measurement of SOD in some kinds of mammalians including human, the more SOD is, the longer life span is.
 
The amount of SOD of various animals were examined.
 
Shiba Inu (dog): 1.6 (Average life span:14 years)
Munchkin (cat): 3.1 (15 years)
Monkey: 5.7 (30 years)
Horse: 4.4 (25 years)
Mouse: 0.5 (3 years)
Human: 6.2 (80 years)
 
The above shows the relationship between heart and life span.
The number that the heart can pulsate in a lifetime is limited.
The number of pulsation in a lifetime is one billion times.
In the case of a mouse, 600 times/minute x 3 years = 1 billion times.
In the case of a dog, 120 times/minute x 15 years = 1 billion times.
 
If this law is applied to the human, 70 times/minute x 30 years = 1 billion times. We are supposed to live only for 30 years. There is difference of 50 years, compared to actual life span. This difference is brought by more plentiful amount of SOD than other animals.
 
The amount of human’s SOD is richer than other animals, but it starts to decrease rapidly from the age of 40. Therefore, it is important to increase SOD in order to keep the heart elastic.
 
People who live in a town where are a lot of hills are rich in SOD.
It is considered that placing a load on the muscles by walking on a hill leads to the secretion of a lot of SOD.
 
To increase SOD, it is important to walk on hills and stairs.
 
The point is climbing up and down stairs slowly. The slower you climb up and down stairs, the more you can place a load on the muscles.

Leaky Gut Syndrome is leakage of toxins in the intestine and causes various symptoms. It is said that Leaky Gut Syndrome (LGS) is caused by imbalanced life style like imbalanced dietary habit.
 
LGS happens in the small intestine. The small intestine breaks down the food and absorbs the nutrition.
 
The intestinal wall prevents the leakage of the substances in the intestine to the blood vessel. There are intestinal bacteria and toxins in the intestine. Normally the toxins are excreted with stools.
 
But if the inflammation of the intestine happens, a part of the intestinal wall becomes weak, causing leakage of toxins to the blood vessel. The leaked toxins are delivered to all over the body through the blood and cause various symptoms. (Fig. 1 and 2)
 
LGS can be a cause of serious diseases such as asthma, diabetes, stroke, septicemia.
 
2 methods to improve LGS
 
1. Vinegar
 
According to a research paper presented in US, a substance contained a lot in vinegar activates the cells in the intestine and prevents LGS.
 
According to an article in The Journal of Nutrition, a substance contained in vinegar enhances the barrier function of the intestinal membrane.
 
The substance contained in vinegar is Short Chain Fatty Acid, which is a kind of nutrition necessary to keep intestinal flora clean.
 
Any kinds of vinegar contain short chain fatty acid and can be expected to be effective.
 
2. Dietary fiber
 
Another method to increase short chain fatty acid is eating a lot of vegetables (dietary fibers).
 
When dietary fibers go into the intestine, they are broken down, fermented by intestinal bacteria and transformed into short chain fatty acids.
 
But it has not been researched yet that how much vinegar and dietary fiber should be taken to improve LGS.
 
Experiment
 
A 53 years old woman who is suspected to have LGS and whose amount of toxins in the blood is 0.2 (Guide line: less than 0.1) attended an experiment. She has persistent constipation.
 
Potato contains water soluble dietary fibers which is easy to be transformed into short chain fatty acid. Water soluble dietary fibers are contained in sticky vegetables such as sea vegetables, yam, avocado, okura.
 
After she tried to take vinegar and dietary fibers as much as possible for 5 days, she had a blood test to check the amount of toxins in her blood. The amount of toxins in her blood decreased from 0.2 to 0.16.
 
Taking too much vinegar can cause to gastrointestinal disorder so it is important to take proper amount of vinegar.
 
Continuing taking vinegar and dietary fibers for a long period of time leads to the improvement of LGS.
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