What Your Telomeres Tell You About Aging
This guest blog post was written by Julie Johnson , Senior Health Enhancement Coordinator at St. Luke’s East.
Similar to the little plastic caps on shoelaces that prevent unraveling, TELOMERES are on the end of every strand of your DNA. They keep your genetic structure intact. These caps directly affect your rate of aging; from skin and hair, to brain and heart, to muscles and bones. Healthy practices- exercise, anti-inflammatory diet, Omega-3 fats and sleep- all play a part in lengthening telomeres and making your DNA more resilient. Turning back the clock for DNA, so to speak. So here is your guide to slowing down the aging process.
On the other hand, unhealthy practices; smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, dietary sugars and trans- fat, to name a few, will shorten the telomeres. This accelerates DNA displacement, rapidly aging you from the inside out. Shortened telomeres are associated with age related diseases including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Few things speed the aging process like chronic stress. Increased cortisol (the stress hormone) levels, elevated blood pressure and interrupted sleep which commonly accompany stress, damage telomeres. But you can undo the damage. In a study of middle-aged women, 15 minutes of vigorous exercise each day protected cells from the aging effects of stress. You can knock that out with a daily brisk mile walk. When researchers examined telomeres — — the women who weren’t regular exercisers showed extra aging. But not just any kind of exercise! The anti-aging benefits in the study came from sweat-inducing, heart-pumping, vigorous exercise such as brisk walking, cycling, lap swimming– or any type of physical exertion that gets you comfortably out of breath.
Lengthen your telomeres with healthy daily choices including exercise and taming tension with meditation, relaxation and activities like yoga or Tai Chi. Pump up your diet with plants containing inflammation fighting nutrients and folic acid. Consume at least four cups each day of fruits and veggies and five to six ounces of whole grains. Eating cold water, fatty fish like salmon, tuna and herring twice a week will improve Omega-3 levels and slow down aging as will nuts and seeds.
Join Julie at Bridge Space on Tuesday, September 24 at 9am for a free class to discuss telomeres and slowing down the aging process.
The clock is ticking. What have you done for your Telomeres today??
The post What Your Telomeres Tell You About Aging appeared first on Bridge Space.
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