The length of your telomeres determines how fast you age. It is possible to slow this process down to improve your mental and physical health and move you into active anti-ageing and disease prevention.
What Are Telomeres?
Telomeres are segments of DNA at the end of our chromosomes, and scientists often compare them to the plastic tips of shoelaces that keep the laces together. Telomeres function similarly, reducing the potential for chromosomes to start fraying or tangling with one another. When this tangling occurs, it can cause genetic information to get confused or even destroyed, leading to cell malfunction, increasing the risk of disease and accelerating ageing both physically and mentally.
Why Do Telomeres Determine How Fast You Age?
Each time a cell divides and splits, its telomeres become shorter. After years of this continuous process, telomeres become too short for more divisions. At this point, cells cannot divide further and become inactive, die or continue dividing anyway — an abnormal process linked to disease (Goldman et al., 2018).
The biology of telomerase has broad ramifications for human health and ageing. Therefore, the discovery of telomerase and studies on telomere capping by Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak were honoured with the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine, supporting the importance of this research.
Essentially, when our telomeres get short, this is how our bodies age. As more of our cells lose their telomeres, without others to take their place, the body itself follows and begins to break down. Each telomere’s potential lifespan is directly related to our life spans. Research by Reiss et al. 2018 & Goldman et al. 2018 confirms that the length of our telomeres determines how fast we age.
The Good News: Telomerase is an enzyme that lengthens telomeres and keeps them from wearing out too fast or too early. However, telomerase levels are depleted with constant cell division, enabling telomeres to shorten.
Support research: E. Callaway, 2010, carried out a mouse model to investigate this theory. Mice engineered to lack telomerase aged quickly, but when the enzyme was replaced, they bounced back to optimum health. Reawakening telomerase in human cells where it’s stopped working could slow normal human ageing. “This has implications for thinking about telomerase as a serious anti-ageing intervention,” said DePinho, a cancer geneticist who led the study.
Dr Epel, an anti-ageing specialist, stated, “Telomeres are a protective casing at the end of a strand of DNA.
Each time a cell divides, it loses a few of its telomeres. The telomerase enzyme can replenish it, but chronic stress and cortisol exposure decrease your supply. The cell often dies or becomes pro-inflammatory when the telomere is too diminished. This sets the ageing process in motion, along with associated health risks.”
A 2004 study compared healthy women who were mothers of healthy children (the control moms) and those who cared for chronically ill children (caregiving mothers). On average, the caregiving mothers had ten years shorter telomeres than the control moms. That is, their cells behaved as if one decade older. Another study examining African-American boys found that those who came from stressful environments had about 40 % shorter telomeres than peers from stable homes. Therefore, the environments our kids have been raised in also affect our next generation!
5 Tips On How To Lengthen Your Telomeres
1. Control & Reduce Stress
We have known for years that chronic stress can lead to depression and anxiety and increase belly fat due to the increased cortisol levels. Now we also know it accelerates ageing! Taking adaptogen herbs and other nutrients to help block the co-factors produced in metabolic pathways is vital!
Based on the ever-growing levels of stress we are all under and seeing so many stress-related diseases (both mentally and physically), I decided to formulate a new product based on this evidence-based research. Let’s face it, not all of us can practise the following steps constantly daily in our busy lives.
As always, I was researching a way to fast-track us all with the ever-increasing stress levels of 21-century living.
Visit the shop to find our Brain Support Complex.
2. Move Your Body & Play Each Day
Movement and activity will oxygenate your body, and studies show that you will help slow down telomere shortening and, therefore, ageing. At weekends I have an exercise schedule as per below, where I move my body with my family and do a hike, beach walk, swim, bike ride etc., so I move my body each day.
I split my work week into these two types of exercise.
Type 1 Exercise
Exercising using interval training is particularly good with bursts & I do this Monday, Wednesday & Friday. Here is the system I use;
- Step 1) Warm up for 5-10 minutes
- Step 2) Run, Bike, or Swim at 90 per cent of your capacity for 60 seconds
- Step 3) Rest for 4 minutes and go back to your gentle warm-up pace
- Step 4) Repeat.
I like this system for it means I’m exercising with 5-minute intervals – 1-minute sprint & 4 mins recovery. I repeat this six times to make up 30 minutes. I then do some yoga, pilates or core and finish stretching. I do Interval Burst Training every other day, so my anti ageing and fat-burning hormones balance me the other days.
I then have a green juice after my exercise and wait 1 hour till I eat to enhance my human growth hormone (HGH) naturally, which significantly influences anti-ageing.
Type 2 Exercise
I mix this up and do type 2 Tuesdays and Thursdays. Walk on the beach, cycle, dance, horse ride, hike, or do weights in the gym etc. I train my upper and lower body once a week with weights or often just using my body weight.
3. Eat Colourful Foods To Boost Antioxidant & Vitamin Benefits
Due to over-farming and living in a toxic world, we need to eat 10-15 portions of fruits & veggies daily, not the five a day like years ago.
I eat three different greens daily:
- lettuce, cucumber, celery, broccoli, zucchini, kale, green beans and spinach,
- two colourful fruits
- vegetables such as carrots, tomatoes, berries or apples.
I also suggest taking a whole food organic super greens powder, so all of my bases are covered, such as The Super Elixir, which I formulate for WelleCo or the Rejuv Super Greens Complex Powder, giving you all the nutrients to support your 11 systems and therefore slow down ageing.
4. Practice Prayer & Meditation
A survey among breast cancer survivors revealed that those who participated in mindful meditation and practised yoga kept their telomeres at the same length; the telomeres of the control group, who did neither activity, shortened during the study time (Carlson et al. 2015).
A 2008 study (Ornish et al.) investigated a group of men and found that, after three months of a vegan diet, aerobic exercise and stress management, including yoga, there was increased telomerase activity. A 2013 follow-up study found that those lifestyle changes are associated with longer telomeres.
Meditation comes in different forms for different people. Some like to meditate alone; others practise yoga, some just set positive intentions for the day, and others spend time with family and friends simply turning their phones off. I like to get still and have time in prayer, but regardless of how you choose to ‘decompress’, it’s clear it is vital for our minds and bodies.
5. Increase Foods High In Glutathione
Low levels of Glutathione are linked to chronic disease and accelerated ageing. The active ingredient in Turmeric, curcumin, has been shown to help boost glutathione in the body and preserve telomere integrity. Curcumin is only 10% of turmeric, so to get the best longevity results, I suggest taking 2 of our Rejuv Organic Turmeric Capsules daily before food.
Some of the top foods that can support healthy glutathione levels are;
- Avocado
- Asparagus
- Spinach
- Tomatoes
- Broccoli
- Brussel sprouts
- Onions
- Garlic
- Grapefruit
- Organic Eggs
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