More ways to slow aging and protect your health....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 1-26-2010

There was a story in the online news on Wednesday, 1-20, last week that said that some of the very beneficial effects from using fish high in omega 3 oils & purified fish oil supplements is because the omega 3 oils keep your telomeres from unraveling.

As long as you live, your cells are continuously being renewed. When telomeres, the caps on the end of DNA, are intact, the copies are exactly the same as the originals. But as you age some of your cells are copies of cells where the telomeres got worn off and are NOT perfect copies. This all too often means those cells are partially to completely defective & may not work to keep you healthy and alive.

So, in a very real way, things that keep your telomeres long enough to ensure perfect copies slow or stop aging.

Yesterday, Dr Al Sears had an email selling his information on increasing telomerase which actually rebuilds telomeres that have been fraying.

He has evidence in his email that suggests the methods he has found do work.

But you don’t have to use his methods to gain from using ways that help keep your telomeres longer.

Here are 6 things I’ve seen evidence also protect your telomeres from fraying.:

1. As many of you know from reading our blog or seeing it elsewhere, eating fish high in omega 3 oils & taking purified fish oil supplements to get adequate omega 3 intake plus almost eliminating most large sources of omega 6 oils sharply reduces excess inflammation.

Since this set of things will also benefit your heart and make heart attacks less likely, it may well be that if you do both things, it will both lower excess inflammation AND help keep your telomeres from unraveling.

Refined grains and foods made from them harm you by forcing fast rises in your blood sugar and rebound hunger. This tends to make you fat and at risk to get type 2 diabetes. In addition, these grains have high amounts of omega 6 oils which increase inflammation.

So, you can be less fat, healthier, AND possibly slow aging too, if you simply stop eating these foods.

Eat some walnuts for a healthier way to get the modest amount of omega 6 oils your body actually needs. Stop eating refined grains and foods made from them. Eat only modest amounts of whole grains and foods made from them or very little. Eat mostly beans, lentils, nuts, and nonstarchy vegetables for fiber instead.

Eat only protein foods from animals fed only grass or their natural diet instead of those that are grain fed. OR, only eat the leanest or fat removed versions to avoid ingesting the omega 6 oils in that fat. This has the added bonus of avoiding the bioconcentrated pesticides and herbicides the grain was grown with that are also in the fat of grain fed animals.

Oils made from grains and some seeds, such as soy, corn, safflower, and canola are all high in omega 6 oils. These oils all tend to increase inflammation.

Olive oil and extra virgin olive oil have monosaturated fats or omega 9 oils. Unlike the omega 6 oils that lower your HDL and tend to trigger inflammation, these oils leave your HDL high but do not increase your LDL. Use those oils instead of omega 6 oils.

2. Smoking very definitely speeds aging by up to 25 %. So it looks like avoiding tobacco smoke both by NOT smoking and avoiding second hand smoke will very likely protect your telomeres.

3. There is now abundant evidence that people who get regular exercise and regular and vigorous exercise age up to 25% less than people who are sedentary. So it also looks very likely that getting such exercise regularly will protect your telomeres.

In addition, such exercise tends to prevent insulin resistance, obesity, high blood pressure, and heart disease directly.

And, it triggers your body to produce new brain cells and release other growth hormones to cause your body to repair itself.

Lastly, exercise tends to cause increased blood flow and good intake of oxygen and removal of CO2 and other wastes to keep your cells healthy in that way.

4. Excessive and prolonged stress tends to degrade telomeres.

So everything you do to avoid that kind of stress and remove it when you can will protect your telomeres.

This ranges from making prudent choices such as NOT driving drunk and always wearing your seat belt to making a strong focused effort to solve or safely escape the problems that stress you to doing something like meditation or quiet reading or tai chi that enables you to turn off the stress response long enough for you to recover.

5. Vitamin C, when you take 500 mg a day or more, may also help keep your telomeres from shortening.

Similarly, supplements such as turmeric or the curcumin in the turmeric and some other supplements tend to help prevent excess inflammation.

6. Brushing your teeth in a way that brushes at the gumline and brushes your gums
AND flossing each day plus taking CoQ10 or in its ubiquinol form plus seeing your dentist regularly for a check up and teeth cleaning -- each helps to prevent gum disease.

Since gum disease causes severe inflammation; & it looks like excess inflammation shortens your telomeres, doing these things to keep your gums healthy not only allows you to keep your teeth and prevents heart disease, it may well also protect your telomeres and slow aging.

Dr Sears also quotes evidence that keeping your telomeres long enough not only slows aging so you can live longer but also shows that people with intact telomeres or longer telomeres enjoy MUCH better health and have less disease.

He lists these different sources.:

• The Los Angeles Times reported that scientists found
“the death rate from heart attack was three times higher for men whose telomeres got short the fastest. The death rate for women was 2.3 times higher.”

• Journals of Gerontology reported that “100-year-olds in good health had “significantly longer” telomeres than those with health problems.”

• American Heart Association: reported that “people with shorter telomeres in their immune cells had twice the risk of death from heart failure as patients with the longest telomeres.”

• Psychosomatic Medicine reported that: “women with shorter telomeres are more likely to be overweight and insulin-resistant.”

• American Association for Cancer Research in one of its journals “published a potential link between telomere length and colon cancer.”

• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that “people with short telomeres are more likely to suffer from weaker immune systems and greater heart disease risk.”