Herbal Extract For Increased Longevity
Recently, a study from University of California, Irvine, showed that the herbal extract of a yellow-flowered mountain plant indigenous to the Arctic regions of Europe and Asia increased the lifespan of fruit fly populations. Rhodiola rosea, also known as the golden root, grows in cold climates at high altitudes and has been used by Scandinavians and Russians for centuries for its anti-stress qualities. The herb is thought to have anti-oxidative properties and has been widely studied. Flies that ate a diet rich with Rhodiola rosea lived on an average of 10 percent longer than fly groups that didn't eat the herb.
Soviet researchers have been studying Rhodiola on athletes and cosmonauts since the 1940s, and have found that the herb boosts the body's response to stress. And earlier this year, a study on people with mild-to-moderate depression, from Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, showed that patients taking a Rhodiola extract called SHR-5 reported fewer symptoms of depression than did those who took a placebo.