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Telomeres:
Why all the fuss about telomeres? Telomeres are the caps on the ends of chromosomes (kind of like the caps on the ends of shoe laces) that protect the chromosome from unraveling or wearing away. They are thought to be an index of cell age. When they shorten, the cell's lifespan shortens. Many studies show an association between shorter telomere length and diseases of aging such as heart disease, osteoporosis, cancer and dementia. If you do a pubmed search of "telomeres" you will find over 2100 studies. I am going to just introduce here some of what we have learned.
Lately I feel like I have been bombarded with information about telomeres. It is probably because I live in the Bay Area and work at UCSF where Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD just won the Nobel Prize for her discoveries involving telomeres and telomerase. The work of Blackburn and her colleagues is leading to some important insights into how the stress in our lives impacts the aging process. For instance, both perceived stress and chronicity of stress is associated with shorter telomere length and less telomerase activity (substance which lengthens telomeres). In one study of healthy premenopausal women, those with the highest levels of perceived stress had telomeres shorter by the equivalent of one decade of additional aging compared to low stress women. Doesn't that make you want to take that vacation you have been putting off? How about enrolling in a MBSR or yoga class?
There is good news! The first time I heard about telomeres was during a talk by Dean Ornish, MD at the Integrative Medicine Forum put on my students at UCSF. He talked about how his program for reversing heart disease involving a low fat diet, yoga and exercise increased telomere length. In other words, his work is showing that lifestyle changes like nutrition and exercise do make a difference in how long we will live. As a middle aged woman, that piqued my interest! For more information about Dr Ornish's programs see this site. It looks like simply following the CDC guidelines for exercise may help buffer the effect of chronic stress on telomere length as well. In a small study of 63 healthy post menopausal women, reserachers found that among non-exercisers a one unit increase in the Perceived Stress Scale related to a 15 fold increase in the odds of having short telomeres. Remember the CDC guidelines are 2.5 hours of moderate intensity exercise (ex. brisk walking) every week. This can be broken up into 10 minute increments- we can all do this! To summarize the good news, cross sectional studies show that you can increase your telomere length by: -
Increasing vigorous exercise to 4-5 times a week
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Improving overall nutrition by decreasing fat, processed foods and increasing nutrients
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Losing extra weight
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Reducing stress and depression and improving overall well being
Dr. Ornish also mentioned that UCSF was doing a research study looking at stress and its' affect on telomeres. If you are interested in finding out about your telomere length, check out this study. They are recruiting healthy nonsmoking women between the ages of 50-65. In addition to collecting samples to measure telomere length (blood and hair), they also look at body fat, weight, diet and a number of psychological variables. You will be randomized to the group who finds out their telomere length now or the group that finds out a year later. If you are interested in participating go to the website for more information. If you would like help coming up with a plan for stress reduction, healthy nutrition and/or increasing physical activity, give me a call. |
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