June 23, 2000 -- Eating Grape Nuts didn't help naturalist Euell Gibbons find
June 23, 2000 -- Eating Grape Nuts didn't help naturalist Euell Gibbons find the Fountain of Youth. He died at 64, although he did help introduce the world to more natural foods.
Ponce de Leon also never found the Fountain of Youth, dying somewhere around the age of 61, but he did discover Florida.
And science has yet to discover the silver bullet that cures all that ails us and offers the promise of ever-longer, or never-ending, life. But that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of ideas out there to fill the void. Here are just a few, from history past and present.
The quest for immortality has probably been around since man realized he could die. Greek mythology has Sibylla, who was given everlasting life by Apollo. The only problem was that the deal didn't include eternal youth, and Sibylla ended up small, shriveled, and in a bottle begging to die.
In Gulliver's Travels, satirist Jonathan Swift created the Struldbruggs, who also were immortal. Once again though, beware of what you wish for, because they too had to live in increasing decrepitude.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. In a method that dates back thousands of years, some holy men in India -- and others in China, Egypt, and elsewhere -- have been tapping a fountain of youth that's no more than an arm's length away. It can be ingested over fruit, or even over Grape Nuts, for that matter. Or you can drink it fresh and warm, as some modern-day proponents of the practice preach. It's called urine therapy, and there are books and believers on the topic.
They do not say urine promises everlasting life, but instead that the "water of Shiva" can cure a bevy of ills, from the flu to Kaposi's sarcoma, and it can also deter aging. Some women supposedly use it for bathing to improve their skin. Of course, you must only use your own urine, not someone else's.
From the esteemed British Medical Journal comes a study of 918 Welsh men suggesting that sex may help extend life. Over 10 years of follow-up, the risk of heart attack among the group of men who had two orgasms or more per week was less than half that in the men who had less than one orgasm per month.
According to The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and other journals, there is one scientifically proven method of extending life span that has worked in all non-human species tested so far. Cutting calories over a lifetime can extend life expectancy by 35% or more. That would theoretically increase the life span of an American male from 72 years to 99 years, and of an American female from 79 years to 106 years!
Or, you could just cut to the chase and place special magnets on your fingers and feet, which balance out the negative and positive forces in your cells, leading to perpetual reconditioning, according to some believers.
If your faith in science is such that no cures will be found before you die, then put yourself on ice. There are cryonic freezing companies around the country that will store your frozen body until a cure comes along, or just your head, with the understanding that science will find a way to regrow your body.
And there's always mind over matter. Herb Bowie, who looks surprisingly like Dick Clark, was the former editor of Forever Alive magazine. He has also written a book called Why Die? A Beginner's Guide to Living Forever. Basically, his mantra is: have faith that you're not going to die.
In his article "Seven Steps to Physical Immortality," Bowie writes "I'm promoting staying healthy and youthful indefinitely ... the next step is to eliminate any mistaken beliefs that science has found some reason we can't live forever."
If all else fails, rely on jelly donuts and fried sandwiches for everlasting life. It's worked for Elvis.
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