Denham Hitchcock: Finding the secret to a longer, healthier life
I watch the needle push slowly into my vein, lifeblood gushes, the vials fill one by one and clatter into the stainless steel basin. Normally this wouldn’t bother me, but today is different. This is day six without solid food. Day six of a fast.
I feel a strange sensation, drowning in mid-air, a heavy sickness creeping up my throat. My last words: “Something strange.” Then I pass out and my body starts to convulse. Nurses rush from everywhere. This is not the plan.
The fasting diet I followed saw me lose vast amounts of weight in record time, in truth it also changed my life, the way I view, the way I allow food to control me. But what really left me and everyone in this office astounded, were the results from the blood tests. No one was expecting that.
What if someone told you, you could add 20 healthy years to your life? Stay sharp and active past the age of 100? What if they said you could destroy damaged cells, the same ones that cause cancer, Alzheimer’s and dementia? What if those damaged cells could be replaced with brand new ones, shiny new stem cells of your very own making, flooding your system, the body’s building blocks switched on en mass, for the first time since your teenage years? Sounds good doesn’t it.
But there’s only one sure fire way to test this remarkable theory and that’s to give it a go, which is how I ended up slumped in a chair at a hospital in Sydney.
It was the end to a remarkable story that saw us fly to all corners of the globe. A secret island in Greece, labs in Europe, institutes in New York, schoolyards in California. The cutting edge of not only longevity research but also the front line in the battle against obesity. People who believe we should all cruise past the age of 100, physically active, mentally sharp.
There’s a reason we wish for immortality, a reason we long to shake our fist at the gods and carry on. Life is good, and we want more of it.
We’ve done the hard work for you, now all you had to do is tune in this Sunday.
SUNDAY NIGHT AIRS SUNDAY 8.30PM, ONLY ON CHANNEL 7.
