Keep telomeres long to slow aging....Today's post:  Tuesday, 7-10-2018

There are several ways to slow aging.   

One is to remove senescent cells, particularly from your mitochondria.

Keeping your mitochondria healthy and adding new ones can also help. 

But in some ways the most important one is to have your healthy cells make perfect copies so your new cells work properly.

As many of you know, at the end of each strand of your DNA there are end caps that ensure the DNA that makes you up stays the same each time your cells divide.

These end caps are called telomeres.  When they are long and stay that way, your cells make perfect copies.

When they are too short or disappear your cells begin to make imperfect copies.  When this happens some, your body works less well and your appearance changes.

When it happens so much the process cascades, the person begins to look older quite fast and dies soon after that.

Some people have heredity that seems to keep telomeres longer.

But there are many things that can not only keep telomeres from getting shorter, they can cause shorter telomeres to get longer!

Best of all some of them are quite doable.

Being nice and warm to people most of the time; resolving differences without rancor or permanent problems; and having a good relationship with your friends, family, and people you meet tends to keep telomeres long.

Avoiding severe stress, being resilient and flexible and able to find ways to beat challenging threats and learning how to physically turn down stress reactions tends to keep telomeres long.

Those work; but can sometimes not go well.

Are there any you can do easily that work anyway?

Last Friday, 7-6-2018 Dr Al Sears emailed some actions you can take that do just that because the messenger your body uses to lengthen telomeres is telomerase.

So if you do things to turn it on, your telomeres get longer.

In his email Dr Sears said this:  “Dr Sears said this:

"When you turn telomerase on, your telomeres gradually get longer. Your body starts creating younger cells. And by activating telomerase you can improve and support your heart function, kidney function, memory and vision. You can recharge your sexual desire, breathe easier, look younger and feel younger.

In other words, you can reverse the aging process."

1.  “In one study of telomerase, people took either a placebo or 2,000 IU of vitamin D a day. After only four months, telomerase activity in the vitamin D group skyrocketed by 19.2%. Those taking the dummy pill had no change.”

This is natural vitamin D3 he is talking about.  Man made vitamin D2 neither works as well nor is safe to take enough of to produce this effect.

Vitamin D3 by contrast is safe to take up to at least a bit over 20,000 iu day that people sometimes get from summer sun exposure.

It is wise to take D3 with vitamin K2 since the calcium D3 activates gets sent by K2 to build your bones and removes it from your blood vessels.

I mention this because there is reason to believe that taking 10,000 iu a day of D3 or more is even more effective to much more effective in boosting telomerase.

People who do so heal faster and better from injuries than people who take 2,000 iu day. Recent studies even showed this is true for injuries to your heart!

2.  “Raising the level of vitamin C in your cells stimulates telomerase. It could slow down the shortening of telomeres up to 62%.4

To protect telomeres, I recommend taking 5,000 mg to 8,000 mg every day. Be sure to divide that amount into smaller doses throughout the day.”

This is expensive and logistically hard and can upset your stomach. 

I hope that the 2500 mg I take works as well.  I take one capsule of vitamin C morning and evening and one capsule of calcium ascorbate with 500 mg of C each morning and evening.  And, I take a B Complex with 500 mg of vitamin C each morning.

This is heart protective directly in addition to any boost to telomerase.

3.  Omega 3 oils boost telomerase also:

“Omega-3 fatty acids activate telomerase. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found patients with the lowest levels of omega-3 fats had the fastest telomere shortening. Those with the highest levels had the slowest shortening.5

Your body can’t make omega-3s. You have to get it from food. Some of the best food sources are wild, cold-water fish like fresh mackerel, pink salmon and snapper.

But I’ve found most people need to supplement.”

I eat 3 cans of wild caught Alaskan salmon a week for dinner most weeks.

And, I take two Nordic Natural filtered fish oil Omega 3 capsules each day.  This mild tasting form plus the lemon extract they add avoids a fish taste. For me it works 100%!

I also take two capsules of Jarrow MaxDHA because the DHA is the omega 3 that best protects your nerves and brain and your heart.

Also, though Dr Sears doesn’t say so, the effects of omega 3 oils go up greatly if you also completely stop ingesting excessive grains and grain fed animal protein foods with high omega 6 oils and things like MSG that boost inflammation.  This specifically means to never eat refined grain hybrid wheat even though it’s still common for most people to do that.

There are some other things known to keep your telomeres long.

But these three things have so many other benefits and are so doable, I wanted to make them today’s post.