Healthy aging

Aging with grace — a natural approach to preserving your “health span”

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

• What causes physical aging?
• Can hormones and nutrition stop aging?
• Simple ways to slow down aging

Naturally, we all hope to age gracefully — but most of us wouldn’t pass up a dip in the legendary fountain of youth! We not only want to look younger, but we also want to feel as energetic and strong as we did in years past — mentally as well as physically. But common wisdom has it that wrinkled skin, aching joints, fragile bones, memory loss, and low energy are just natural symptoms of age. We’re meant to reflect upon our acquired knowledge and wisdom in these later years, not cling to what once was, right? I know I’m not the only one thinking, Can’t we have it all?

In caring for women and watching as my own family members age, I think we can have it all — or closer to it than we might think. As new theories are formed about how the body ages, traditional theories of aging are being made obsolete. The best news is, we can increase our “health span” naturally. Let’s take a closer look at the aging process, and how you can help yourself grow older with vitality, beauty, and grace.

Behind biological aging — shrinking DNA and fraying shoelaces

As most women reach a “certain age,” they begin to wonder why their bodies start to physically deteriorate. I’ll share with you what I tell my patients: the answer isn’t simple, and the reasons are as variable and unique as you are. Biological aging, aging of your cells at the molecular level, can be brought on by environmental and metabolic free radicals, spontaneous errors in genetic coding and division, and maladaptive biochemical reactions, as well as nutritional issues — and those are just a few of the processes we’ve learned about. In other words, lots of different things going on inside your cells can cause damage, some that are within your control and some that are not.

As with all living things, each of our individual cells undergoes a kind of “life cycle.” How we age hinges on a delicate balance between our cells’ renewal capacity and their knowing when to die, a balance that drives cellular aging and increased susceptibility to diseases. Recent research reveals that a cell’s life cycle greatly depends on a special region of DNA located at the ends of your chromosomes, called a telomere, that serves to protect the genetic information contained within your chromosomes.

To illustrate this concept, leading molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn compares the telomere to the waxy plastic caps at the ends of shoelaces. The longer a cell’s telomeres, the more frequently the cell can replicate (divide) without errors, and the more “biologically youthful” it is. With each new cell division the telomeres shrink, eventually disappearing altogether.

This “fraying” of the telomeres leads to cell defects and eventual cell destruction, at which point the effects of biological aging start showing up in the body. For example, a 2008 study has linked shorter telomeres with hypertension and cardiovascular disease. So scientists are looking at telomere length as a marker for biological aging.

Also under study is a fascinating enzyme called telomerase, which is reported to “heal” chromosomes by replenishing the telomeric DNA sequence that gets lost each the time the cell divides. In many adult cells, telomerase is still present, but it becomes less active (or downregulated). In most invasive cancers, by contrast, telomerase becomes hyperactive — revved-up — rendering these cells effectively immortal! Now, telomerase is not what makes a cell cancerous — it just an enabler that allows cancer cells to thrive. Like many things in nature, telomerase has two faces, and must be present in amounts that are “just right” for healthy aging.

When our cells start to age, so do we

In the normal state of health, our body systems are composed of cells programmed by DNA to carry out the specific duties required to make that system work. When we’re young and our telomeres are long, our rapidly dividing skin cells generate glowing skin, our hair follicles grow lush shiny hair, our bone cells constantly turn over and mineralize, our immune cells proliferate when faced with infection, our cardiovascular cells keep the heart and blood vessels resilient, and so on. As we age and telomere length diminishes, our cells divide and repair themselves less frequently and become more prone to cell division defects, leaving us with less capacity to enrich and protect these systems. This is when we notice signs of degeneration.

So what leads to shortening telomeres? We still don’t know definitively whether telomere length is primarily a function of our genetic blueprint, age, or lifestyle, but new research seems to be pointing to all three. More studies are also needed to distinguish whether shorter telomeres are more the cause or the consequence of the increased vulnerability to infection many people experience as they grow older. At any rate, the leading hypothesis is that by damaging telomeres and impairing their repair mechanisms, oxidative stress and inflammation make our cells burn like candles in the wind.

Hormones and nutrition — can aging be stopped?

The short answer to that question is no — but it can be slowed down. Many of you have heard about Suzanne Somers and Robin McGraw using bioidentical hormones, such as human growth hormone, to “prevent” aging, and lots of women are reporting great results in this area. There is controversy surrounding hormones, though, and we really don’t know the long-term effects of using hormones — bioidentical or otherwise — as an elixir of youth. We have written extensively about this in our HRT section, and encourage women to read up and consider the potential costs versus benefits of such an approach.

Meanwhile, numerous exciting studies link simple lifestyle changes — such as adding a quality multivitamin, reducing chronic stress, or modifying the way you eat — with longer telomere length! A 2009 study of women ages 35–74, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, reported that daily multivitamin users had telomeres that were, on average, 5.1% longer than those who didn’t take multivitamins.

Another large study of women ages 18–79 found that higher vitamin D levels — something easy to achieve with sensible skin exposure or vitamin D supplements — were associated with longer telomere length. The theory behind these results is that these nourishing micronutrients help to modulate oxidative stress and inflammation in the body.

Vitamin K is another micronutrient newly linked with diseases of aging. The “triage theory” has it that cellular functions required for short-term survival take precedence over less essential ones. When a nutrient is in short supply, certain secondary, yet still important functions performed by that nutrient end up at the bottom of a cell’s to-do list. This is important, because there are approximately 40 essential vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, and proteins — and modest nutrient deficiencies, particularly as we age, are very common. If the nutrient restriction remains ongoing, “insidious changes” may accumulate, increasing our risk for diseases of aging, osteoporosis and atherosclerosis in the case of vitamin K.

I often remind my patients that food can “talk” to our genes, and there’s proof-positive in the stacks of research linking longevity with the Mediterranean diet. Researchers recently tried to elicit just what it is that makes the Mediterranean diet so effective, reporting “The dominant components [that] lower mortality are moderate consumption of [alcohol], low consumption of meat and meat products, and high consumption of vegetables, fruits and nuts, olive oil, and legumes.”

Many women who come to see me are convinced that they, too, will develop high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, or some other largely preventable disease because it runs in their family. But more and more we are understanding that nutrients relay information to our cells, so the nutrition in our food and multivitamins speaks to our genes, telling them to turn on or turn off diseased messaging.

Simply put, the more positive information our cells receive from our daily choices — whether from foods rich in micronutrients, exercise, adequate sleep, or managing chronic stress — the more healthful messages they relay to our genes and the less likely we are to follow the disease pathways that run in our families.

Simple, affordable tips for aging with grace

The medical world has long reported that a calorie-restricted diet (but without malnutrition) can lengthen lives and reduce disease risk. But we don’t yet know how caloric restriction works, and it’s not clear how people can adhere to this in a way that increases their health rather than stressing them out. I know restricting calories doesn’t feel right for many women, and in fact, it could backfire: Blackburn and colleagues have shown that women who constantly try to go on diets — but without success — have shorter, not longer, telomeres. In other words, the psychological stress of yo-yo dieting places undue stress on the body.

New research on resveratrol and soy is showing results similar to calorie restriction without the burden of going hungry. But while we await the definitive results of these studies, I have a few suggestions based on the research we already have, that can help you to feel strong, healthy, and beautiful as the years unfold:

• Take a top-quality multivitamin, an omega-3 supplement, and consider extra vitamin D. Preserve the length of your telomeres and the ability of your cells to divide by providing antioxidant-rich vitamins and the anti-inflammatory effects of omega-3’s. Finding a quality multivitamin and omega-3 supplement like the ones we offer in our Personal Program not only can do wonders for your energy now, but will pay off in the future.
• Eat a balanced diet rich in antioxidants and low in refined carbohydrates, unhealthy fats, and processed foods. Feed your cells the nutrient-rich information found in fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, healthy oils, and unrefined grains. The messages your cells receive from a Twinkie are very different from those of a plate of greens drizzled with olive oil and lime juice.
• Exercise in a way that replenishes rather than drains you. The benefits of exercise to aging have been well documented, and everyone knows they’re supposed to exercise. The key is to find something you look forward to rather than something you avoid or even dread. Even the tiniest spark of motivation can help you get started, and keep getting started, so exercising becomes a habit you cannot live without!
• Explore ways to decrease chronic stress. There’s no doubt that chronic stress is one of the biggest health problems we face today. It contributes to inflammation and increases everyday “wear and tear” on our bodies. Make an honest effort to set aside time each day to lower your stress levels. You might try meditation, yoga, massage, or simply eliminating some dreaded responsibility on your to-do list.

Don’t believe everything you hear about your age!

In a culture obsessed by youth, we listen to a lot of negative messages about growing older. I want to set the record straight: Aging in years does not have to mean a decline in health, energy, or looks! I have several elderly relatives and patients whose active lifestyles and glowing health speak to the power of positive thinking.

What’s exciting to me is that science is uncovering the natural ways we can increase our healthy life span — and many of those nonmedical, nonsurgical approaches are in line with what we’ve been telling our patients all along at Women to Women. Keep your cells active by feeding them a steady diet of nutrients found in fresh wholesome foods and quality multivitamins. Your future is wide open!

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References & further reading on healthy aging

 

Last Modified Date: 04/20/2011
Principal Author: Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP