To Be Or Not To Be Telomeres Are The Question
My friend Stan wanted me to write more about collagen but I need to get back to even more basic science.
The science of DNA … the strands of life. Most of us have 23 pairs of chromosomes which contain all the details about the care and building of the human body. If your DNA gets screwed up … you are screwed up. Mutations in DNA are one way that cancer forms in the body. On way to assess the health of your DNA is to assess the health of the system that maintains the DNA integrity. At the end of each strand of DNA is an endcap called the Telomere. telo = end … meros = part … telomere = end part of DNA.
These short nucleotide sequences (TTAGG for you purists) maintain DNA health. Think of it like the aglet, that little wrapper at the end of the shoestring that keeps it from unraveling.
Chromosomes: NHGRI Fact Sheet
This is no idle speculation. A nobel prize has been won by Professor Elizabeth Blackburn PhD. Her work has conclusively shown that there is a relationship between telomere length and health … telomeres shortness is associate with just about all major disease of aging. The shorter your telomere the more disease. Of course this Nobel prize winner runs a commercial lab that will measure your telomeres … hence your “DNA age” not your apparent/ chronological age. You may be 50 years old but have the “DNA age” of a 40 year old or a 60 year old. Wouldn’t you like to know your DNA age? Well there are multiple companies that offer this testing but you can’t get the tests done in New York State … that would sound fishy but there are a large number of well quantified tests that New York State does not allow including biome testing etc. Forgive me, nitpickers … of course New York State will allow it ONCE you fulfill all the regulatory hurdles. Do they appear to have more regulatory hurdles than any other state in the union? Lets just say that there are multiple companies that can offer this testing but not currently in this state.
So besides the Nobel Prize winner, who has a financial interest in this field so may not be impartial. Who else is confirming this science? Well, Professor Richard Cathorn writing in the Lancet in 2003 involving a small study of 143 people age greater than 60 years followed for 15 years. Shorter telomeres equal shorter survival. Also Dr. Rodrigo Calderon M.D. PhD wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine 2009 that Telomere dysfunction seems to underlie the development of a range of human genetic degenerative aging diseases and cancer In a study sponsored by the American Heart Association and published in 2008 they had 780 patients followed up for 4.4 years. Patients with shorter telomeres had twice a risk of death as patients with longer telomeres.
Another study done in Sweden on 175 swedish twins showed that the twin with the shorter telomeres had a 2.8 times greater risk of death. So short telomeres bad and long telomeres good. Telomeres shorten with age naturally in a slow predictable pattern. What else can shorten and lengthen telomeres?
I know you Americans, you don’t want the details … you just want to know if there is a pill you can take to lengthen your telomeres and thereby lengthen your life. Well there just might be … but follow me through the risk factors first.
Shorter telomeres are associated with earlier death and stressors including PTSD, stress employment and work schedule childhood institution or trauma depression pessimism phobic anxiety and hostility, poor sleep quality and sleep apnea, low physical activity, smoking cigarettes, migraines, all types of heart disease, including hypertension, MI, atherosclerosis, aneurysm, carotid artery disease and stroke.
Benzopyrene DNA Adduct-1JDG
What is associated with longer telomeres? Younger age female gender, increased paternal age of birth, increased physical activity, smaller waist circumference, normal BMI, Mediterranean diet, dietary fiber calorie restriction, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin C, glutathione, and hormones. Dr. Dean Ornish has a diet based program to reverse heart disease. Studies show that his program could increase telomerase, as well as meditation, and TA 65 activation supplement.
So exercise and supplements and a righteous diet have been associated repeatedly with longer telomeres and longer telomeres are associated with better health. Sounds like from the above list you could work on multiple risk factors that impact your telomere health.
If you have been reading carefully you should be asking … what’s this about TA 65 activation supplement? Well there is a well known enzyme that works to promote telomere health/length. Telomerase is a natural enzyme that helps to extend telomeres, it was discovered in 1985. When telomerase is activated it adds DNA bases at the end of the chromosomes and allow cells to live longer and revert to a more useful phenotype. Super bonus round … it preferentially extends short telomeres which are the most dangerous. It is active throughout embryogenesis but then stops of birth.
Turns out there is a Chinese herb ( isn’t there always?) that has been shown repeatedly to increase telomerase activity and has been shown in both mice and humans reliably to lengthen telomeres while you take the supplement. What we don’t know … and it’s a big what … is if this “ natural” lengthener really translates into important clinical results like living longer or less cancer or better overall health etc. It’s very intriguing but way too early to take action with some supplement until you have done everything else you can do … Mediterranean diet, exercise, better sleep, stress reduction, quit smoking, normalize body weight, etc. I will get a lot more excited about this when I can actually order the test … make some changes … or have my patients make changes and repeat the test to assess whether the intervention made a difference. .
Soon hopefully you can get a Four pack of tests that will assess your health better than the many tests your current doctor is doing.
1. Gut biome
2. Telomere length
3. Insulin
4. Antioxidant scan
The first two are held hostage to bureaucracy for now. The third any doctor can do and the fourth test is available if you ask around.
Unfortunately if you take this list to your current doctor they will look at you like you are a mental patient (and I think we are all mental patients) and mock you for falling for some internet chat site pseudo science. However if you had the time to sit and talk about any one of these issues they would eventually COMPLETELY agree that each one is important. Even a doctor who hasn’t opened a medical journal in 5 years must have heard something about the important work being done on understanding the bugs in our guts and how they may control our weight, our mood, our immune system etc.
Your doctor may know nothing of telomeres but a two minute search of the internet will bring them up to speed. Every doctor alive knows about Insulin but most don’t look at it as a marker for inflammation but that is also something they can relate to once they start to look closer at the inflammatory processes in the body … and finally everybody talks about antioxidants. Turns out there is a machine that can reliably measure one of them (and they travel in packs like wolves). There is a cheap machine your doctor can lease / buy that will allow him to scan you and give you insight into this one antioxidant but suggests your overall antioxidant status. The problem is the scan is not covered by insurance and most doctors stop right there thank you very much.
I am not looking for business … certainly not your business, but it pains me that this scan is not more readily available. The science is very solid and the tech is simple and reliable. So, If you are interested I will scan you for a $10 donation to Wanderers Rest Pet Rescue, Hope for the Bereaved, Helping Hounds, Clearpath for Vets, or Father Champlin’s Guardian Angels. Call 410-0651 and we can make it happen. It’s no additional charge. Its not an office call … its a quick scan, say hello and comment on the scan and off you go.
I think it’s an interesting and exciting time to be a healthcare provider. The focus on longevity is interesting and once we can measure your telomeres we will have one more tool to assist you in your efforts to maintain and improve your health.
Until next month … get well … stay well.
