中醫藥在抗衰老上的進展

Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine on Anti-Senescence

衰老（Senescene），是指人體隨著年齡的增加所進行的全身性、多方面、複雜而漸進的退化過程。衰老雖然是一必然的過程，不過卻沒有客觀的標準能夠加以量化，而且其真正的原因也尚未清楚。目前有關於衰老的發生機制說法不一，主要有自由基學說、內分泌學說、細胞衰老學說、免疫學說等。中醫學雖沒有細胞衰老一說，但對衰老認識已久。從歷代對於衰老機理的論述來看，有先天遺傳說、後天失養說、五臟虛損說、腎虛衰老說、脾虛衰老說、精氣神虛衰說以及主虛實說等等。中醫藥對衰老的研究集中在虛，主要是腎虛。中醫對於抗衰老的研究很多，不少研究發現不管是單味藥或是複方，都可以透過不同途徑來達到抗衰老的作用。

Senescence encompasses all of the biological processes of a living organism's approaching an advanced age. It is a complex, progressive aging process of whole organisms. Senescence is a necessary process, but there is no objective standard for quantification. Additionally, its real reason is still remained un-clarified. There are many different opinions on the generative mechanism for senescence, such as free-radical theory, endocrine theory, immunological theory, cell senescence theory, and theory on inununity. In traditional Chinese medicine, there is no cell senescence theory, but many thoughts on anti-aging are developed for long time. The anti-aging theories in traditional Chinese medicine include genetic theory, theory of nutrition lack after birth, theory of five zang organs deficiency, theory of kidney deficiency caused senescence, theory of spleen deficiency caused senescence, and theory of essence-qi-spirit deficiency. The study of traditional Chinese medicine on senescence focuses on deficiency, especially kidney deficiency. A lot of Chinese medicine studies on senescence showed that anti-aging can be reached through different ways with single medicines or multi-formula.