Telomeres-Are your shoe laces fraying early?

What are Telomeres?

Everyone knows what DNA is, essentially its the stuff that programs your cells to make you what you are.

This DNA is housed within a chromosome. Imagine that your chromosome is your shoelace and that the strands of that shoe lace is your DNA. At the end of the shoelace is a little plastic tip, this is the telomere!!

Just like the plastic tip on the shoelace, the telomere keeps the DNA or shoelace from fraying. As cells divide to produce another copy, the telomere gets shorter. Once this telomere runs out the DNA unravels like the shoelace fraying and the cell dies.

This has been found to be one of the biggest markers of ageing. As telomeres shorten and cells die, our tissues show the signs of ageing and we get older.

But there is good news.

Telomerase is an enzyme which adds to Telomere length. Sweet!!!

Telomeres are very sensitive to oxidative stress, meaning they shorten when exposed to things like inflammation, illness, cigarettes and alcohol.

Many study’s have shown that a group of highly stressed people have much shorter telomeres than less stressed people and in turn should age quicker and or have shorter lives.

So what can we do?

We need to limit our exposure to oxidative stress. We can do this by…

• Stress free life

  • We know stress is bad for us and now you know it ages us

  • take time out to relax

  • change your view on life, develop some cognitive strategies to cope with stress

  • have fun, enjoy the simple pleasures

  • turn off the phone and computer for a while

  • get out side and play

• Nutrition

  • eat whole foods

  • eat whole foods ( did i say this twice? i guess it’s important than!!)

  • get lots of antioxidants from fresh fruit and vegetables

  • get plenty of colour on your plate

  • get fish oil into you

• Exercise

  • exercise helps you to deal with everyday stress

  • exercise has been shown to slow the rate of telomere shortening

  • exercise reduces your chance of being over weight which will impact your stress

• Lifestyle

  • give up the smokes. Really it is a silly and disgusting habit, its that simple!

  • Limit the booze. You feel like shit after and you place a huge amount of stress on the body.

• Intermittent fasting

  • Colorie restriction has been shown to slow the rate of telomere shortening

  • This is a great way t reduce oxidative stressand to reduce your weight