The thesis of Child's monumental work is that periodic food deprivation rejuvenates any living organism [we dig our graves with our mouth!] Periodic food deprivation turns off digestion and activates all eliminative processes. Age reversal is not affected primarily by what is put into the organism, but rather by what is eliminated from the organism. Aging is a complex series of chemical reactions activated by eating more than one can effectively digest. The chemical reactions involved in the aging process in all their irrevelant complexity are simultaneously reversed by periodic food deprivation which activates eliminative processes. Indeed, the foundation of the theoretical basis of age reversal is the first law of chemistry one learns in high school, i.e. Le Chatelier's principle which in essence states that all chemical processes are reversible and thus as a corollary, since aging is nothing more than a series of chemical reactions, it must of necessity be a reversible process.

Child's tome lies as a dust covered monument on the shelves of those libraries where it is still available. To appreciate the content of this biological masterpiece, you must be able to read between the lines and see the implications of his findings. His experimental work was done with simple organisms such as the paramecia, amoeba, and hydra, but one must remember that biological laws are applicable, mutatis mutandis, to all levels of biological organization, from unicellular organisms to society considered as an organism.

Child's experimental work shows that as organisms age they become more complex indicating degeneration [you know, sort of like the legal system in this country]. Reversion to a more juvenile [younger] form of the organism is accomplished by activating eliminative processes [such as is accomplished by fasting, especially repetitive fasting] and, indeed, the implicit thesis of Child's book is simply that periodic food deprivation rejuvenates any living organism. Child shows that the cause of aging of any organism is the progressive accumulation of nonfunctional matter within the confines of the organism which nonfunctional matter, in the form of sedimentary deposition, with time covers cell membranes throughout the organism, altering cell membrane permeability with concomitant changes in cellular function. [The old adage that form determines function or anatomy is the basis of physiology.] As form changes so does function. When the cells become so encumbered [covered] with nonfunctional matter, they reach a point where oxygen, due to changes in cell membrane permeability, is no longer available to the inside of the cell. Life adapts and so the cells shift from oxygen based [aerobic] to anaerobic metabolic processes [metabolism without oxygen], i.e. cancer, an adaptive process in which cells are forced to function without oxygen.

Child's experimental work shows that periodic food deprivation shifts cellular energy functions from digestion to elimination which results in the cells disencumbering themselves of unnecessary matter, nonfunctional matter. The control mechanism of the cell [nucleus] becomes a more dominant force as nonfunctional matter is eliminated and the periphery of the cell [nonnuclear cytoplasm] becomes less dominant. The vibratory frequency of the cells also increases as nonfunctional matter coating cell membranes and dampening their pristine level of vibration is eliminated resulting in a progressive increase in the basal metabolic rate, metabolic rate being a function of cell surface to cell volume ratio--the smaller the organism and the smaller the cells, the higher the metabolism.

Child's experiments also show that not all parts of living organisms undergo rejuvenation simultaneously. It is the ectodermal derivatives of the embryo which are the last part of an organism to undergo rejuvenation--the wiring of the machinery, the nervous system and derivatives of the embryonic ectodermal layer. First the machinery--mesodermal and endodermal derivatives--is reconstructed and finally, once the machinery is revamped, it is rewired prior to plugging into a higher energy level which the purificatory process stimulated by periodic food deprivation has activated.

The principles deduced from Child's experimentation can be applied to the human organism by anyone who learns how to do repetitive fasting or hatha yoga which activates the body's built in age reversal mechanism when properly practised. There are people alive today who have achieved physical immortality based on the implicit or explicit application of the principles found in Child's book. Since aging is merely the progressive accumulation of nonfunctional matter within an organism due to incomplete digestion, age reversal is the opposite process, i.e. ridding the body of its stores of accumulated matter, which in the human body takes place through two surfaces--an external surface--the skin, and an internal surface--the entire lining of the alimentary canal from mouth to anus. The most important indicator of age is metabolic rate. As an organism ages, the metabolic rate, the force which drives eliminative processes, decreases because the intrinsic cumulative cellular vibratory frequency capacity is dampened by waste covering cell membranes throughout the body. The older an organism becomes, [age considered not in terms of years, but in terms of total internal stores of accumulated waste, nonfunctional matter], the more rapidly it ages, which is to say that the rate at which nonfunctional matter accumulates in an organism is not constant with time, but increases and is always a function of the total mass of nonfunctional matter within the organism at any given moment. This explains why you see people who appear to be in the peak of good health suddenly become ill and are dead a month later. The rate at which an organism ages is preconditioned by the mass of nonfunctional matter it accumulates during its intrauterine growth when nonfunctional matter crosses the placenta from the mother's blood into the newly forming fetal tissues. Likewise, once the age reversal mechanism has been activated, the rate at which age reversal takes place increases with time because as nonfunctional matter is eliminated from the organism, metabolic rate continues to increase and it is metabolic rate which determines the amount of stored nonfunctional matter which is eliminated in a given time interval. As witness to this phenomenon, consider the fact that in the final stages of hatha yoga practice, one must spent some 12 hours daily keeping up with eliminative processes because the metabolic rate of the organism becomes so rapid.