Let me introduce you to TELOMERES

Have you ever wondered why some people of the same age look overly young while others look extremely old?

Or why some graciously age till 101 while others die at 54?

I recently went back to Italy for three weeks and I was lucky enough to have a good old friend I went to kindergarten, elementary school and middle school with proposing to organise a catch up with the people from middle school.

Of the 25 ish people that class of 1997-2000 was formed of, 13 showed up.

Some of theme were overweight (including a medical doctor), few had fewer hair or completely white hair and others (4 men and all 4 women) aged like fine wine.

I found myself telling an old male classmate he looked so handsome and like he did not age one day. Giving to Caesar.

Not considering possible unresolved traumas that would have been carried for 25 years (consider diving into Gabor Maté for that, his documentary is just great) what makes makes people born in the same year age bad and others like fine wine?

NATURE VS NURTURE

Genetics play a part, of course. But genetics are like an inheritance from your mum and dad: he gives you a house to go living in and that hose sits on the foundations that were build with it, but day after day you decide the works you do with it. You bring down a wall, you create a garden around the house, you carve a new window out of a wall so more light comes in, you remove the asbestos from the roof, you make sure no mould is forming in the room.

You get the point. What matters is not your genetics as much, but your daily habits. There is a process called methylation which is a chemical reaction that influences gene expression.

You might have a parent that had cancer or a heart disease before they had you → you get those genes BUT they are dormant aka not activated UNTIL YOU ACTIVATE THEM.

HOW?

Habits, lifestyle, diet, the environment where you live (pollutants, electromagnetism) and the things you expose your body to (chemicals you wear and absorb daily).

But this episode is not about how to hack into your genes, but something a little more disregarded: telomeres. 

How to tame your Telomeres

In each one of your cells you have 46 strands of DNA coiled into chromosome. At the tip of each chromosome there is a telomere which keeps your DNA from unravelling and running wild. Each time a cell divides, a bit of that telomere is lost and when the telomere is completely gone, the cell can die.

From the length of someone’s telomere you can determine their age.

There are ways to prevent the telomeres to be burnt away

LET ME GIVE YOU 3

• Smoking cigarettes is associated with three times the rate of telomeres loss.

• The consumption of fruit, vegetables and antioxidant rich foods has been associated with longer protective telomeres.

• The consumption of refined grains, fizzy drinks and dairy has been linked to shortened telomeres.

  
  Do with these information what you like.

HAVE YOU HEARD OF TELOMERASE?

Some scientist found an enzyme in a bristlecone pine tree growing in the mountains of California. They named it Methuselah.

There is an enzyme in the roots of the bristlecone pines that seem to peak a few thousand years into their life span, and it actually rebuilds telomeres.

They scientist that found it named it telomerase.

How can we boost the activity of this age defying enzyme?

Dr. Dean Ornish teamed up with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn (awarded of 2009 Nobel in Medicine after discovering telomerase).

In a study funded partly by the Department of Defence they found that 3 months of whole food, plant based nutrition and other changes to a healthier lifestyle boost telomerase activity, the only intervention ever shown to do so.

DOES IT WORK OUT OF A LAB THOUGH?

A 5 year follow up study was published where the lengths of the study subjects’ telomeres were measured.

In the control group (where the participants DID NOT change their lifestyle) their telomeres shrank with age.

But for the healthy group, not only did their telomeres shrink less, they grew.

Five years later their telomeres were even longer on average than when they started, suggesting a healthy lifestyle can boost telomerase enzyme activity and reverse cellular ageing.

The study went on proving that it wasn’t weight loss and it wasn’t exercising that reversed cell ageing, but the food.

They put a group through calorie restriction, a vigorous exercise program while maintaining the same diet and after a year they saw that this group had no benefit to their telomeres while the people on a plant based diet that exercised just half as much, enjoyed the same amount of weight loss after just 3 months and resulted in having significant telomere protection.

I hope this information will help you to get curious at first, and make healthier choices later. I write content like this with the wish that this knowledge will lead to adding few years (or few decades) to your lifespan and the life of the people you love.

I made a video about the topic. If you find the above interesting, you might like content like THIS and the many more following.

Have a great day and talk soon,

Prometheus