A Huge Tip on Extending Healthy Longevity

A Huge Tip on Extending Healthy Longevity 

The “grim reaper” exists and it’s name is STRESS!

Physical stress as well as mental or emotional stress exert powerful effects on the immune system and drive up inflammation, a key mechanism in aging and disease. Stress also destroys cells in the hippocampus, which is the part of your brain responsible for memory and retrieval.

It follows, then, that a good overall anti-aging strategy might be to reduce stress! And indeed, studies confirm stress is a notorious aging accelerant.

When we’re stressed, our bodies begin producing the stress hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is linked to lower levels of telomerase, and telomerase prevents telomere shortening. What is a telomere? 

A telomere is a protective cap at the end of a chromosome, composed of repetitive DNA sequences, that prevents chromosome damage and plays a key role in cell division by ensuring the ends of chromosomes don’t become frayed or tangled; each time a cell divides, telomeres become slightly shorter, and when they become too short, the cell can no longer divide, contributing to aging and eventually death.

Stress, especially when chronic, also triggers epigenetic changes, meaning how your genes are expressed. A variety of lifestyle and environmental factors can increase stress in the body. Poor diet, cigarettes, alcohol, chemicals, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, EMFs, pollution—and the list goes on and on.

Just as with physical factors such as diet and toxicity, psychological

stress is linked to accelerated cellular aging and increased risk for aging related diseases, although the underlying molecular mechanism remains

unclear. People with chronic stress, depression, anxiety or phobias, social

isolation, or trauma have all been shown to exhibit shorter telomeres.

The good news is, stress is controllable and manageable, to a large extent. All you need are the right tools in your tool bag!

The Blue Zones

In 2013, a small pilot study led by Dr. Dean Ornish, published in The Lancet, showed that positive changes in diet, exercise, stress management, and social support may actually lengthen telomeres.1 Dr. Ornish is quoted as saying. “So often people thing, ‘Oh, I have bad genes, there is nothing I can do about it.’ But these findings indicate that telomeres may lengthen to the degree that people change how they live. Research indicates that longer telomeres are associated with fewer illnesses and a longer life.”

Across the Aegean Sea from Athens lies a little Greek Island called

Ikaria, home to about 300 residents. Ikaria is special. One third of the island’s population lives to celebrate their 90th birthday—twice as many as Americans. Ikaria is one of five longevity hotspots in the world, called Blue Zones. The other four are Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Okinawa, Japan; and Loma Linda, California. In Ikaria, life is not a race. People focus on good food, active lifestyle, family, social connections, and spirituality. The elderly play significant roles in the community. Stress is

not only avoided—it’s practically forbidden. No one sets appointments as time is a highly valued resource, viewed and managed differently. They sleep and awaken according to their internal clocks. Depression and dementia are rare. Not only do the Ikarians live longer, but they live healthier too.

A typical Ikarian diet consists of fresh garden vegetables, olive oil, legumes, potatoes, goat’s milk yogurt, whole grain bread, honey, wild herbs, herbal tea, coffee, fish, and the occasional pig. The typical family will slaughter just one animal per year. There is no processed sugar

or refined food in their diet. The Ikarians age in stark contrast to the Americans.

Strategies for Lowering Stress

Unfortunately, medical care for the elderly has turned into a game of whack-a-mole. The standard medical system deals with each disease in isolation, rather than treating the whole person and correcting the underlying biological processes that have caused an immune system to run amuck. The result is that individuals get “cured” of one disease, such as cancer, only to develop another one two or three years down the road. Rather than tackling individual diseases, our focus should be on extending our healthspan, not just our lifespan. Who wants to live longer if those years are filled with misery? In order to achieve this, we must address the root cause of illness and aging, and intervene before the damage accumulates and one of the best places to start is with lowering stress.

Diet

We cannot be eating a chemical, low nutrient filled diet and expect our bodies to handle stress.  When we are stressed we burn through many more vitamins (like vitamin C) and more minerals (like magnesium) so it’s crucial to support our bodies with a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, clean meats, whole grains and pure water. 

Sleep

Your body needs sleep to restore and repair.  If you have trouble sleeping consider checking thyroid hormones and steroidal hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and cortisol.  When you are stressed you produce excess amounts of cortisol which can in turn affect your whole hormonal system.  Set up a sleep “routine”, going to bed at the same time, rising at the same time.  Remove the “screens” TV, iPad, phone, and computer from your bedroom.  Make your bedroom a sanctuary!

Community

Living out a stressful life in isolation only makes it worse.  It’s important to have support systems around you.  This could be family, church, civic organizations or friends.  Don’t isolate yourself!

Minimize Your Toxic Exposure

Obviously we all can’t live on an island in the Aegean sea (how nice would that be!).  We are exposed to 1,000’s of chemicals in our food, air, water, clothes, furniture, cleaning products, and personal care products.  Our bodies are under a tremendous burden every day.  Begin to remove as many of these as you can so when you are at “home”, home is a clean environment.  Use the Environmental Working Group’s website to find out about the most heavily sprayed fruits and vegetables and shop accordingly.  They also have a Water Data-base where you can put your zip code in and see the contaminates in your water. (It’s my opinion we all need to filter our water.)  They also have a “skin-deep” section on the website where you can look up “clean” skin care products.  Go to www.EWG.org for more info.

Move Your Body

The Ikarian folks move their bodies every day.  They walk everywhere!  If you haven’t exercised in a long time, start with walking.  30 minutes 5 X a week is a great place to start.  While the Ikcarian’s live in a steep mountain terrain and many of them follow their goats up these mountains, we can go out our front doors and start there!

Yoga or Tai Chi can be “calming” exercises. Tai Chi boasts a mountain of science backing its health benefits for people of all ages and abilities—from healthy young adults to the elderly or wheelchair-bound.

Mediation, Prayer, Breathing

Stress can often create a “monkey mind” that won’t shut off.  Pick a time in your day (preferably in the morning) where you have a “quiet time.”  Praying is talking with God, meditation is listening to God.  How long has it been since your mind was quiet enough to “hear” Him?  Deep breathing can get us into a calm state and move us from the Sympathetic Nervous System State (fight or flight) into the Parasympathetic Nervous System state (rest and digest.)   You can do deep breathing throughout the day when you feel yourself moving into stress.

How long you live is a complex interaction between genetics and environment, nature and nurture, lifestyle and personality. Pick ONE THING that will help you lower your stress and decide to act on it this coming year.

None of us knows our expiration date, and that’s probably a good thing, but I don’t know about you, but I want to have healthy longevity not a slow progression of ill health to the grave!

In health,

Chris Mckee

Certified Nutritionist at Achieve Integrative Health

1. Ornish, Dean, Jue Lin, June M. Chan, Elissa Epel, Colleen Kemp, Gerdi Weidner, Ruth Marlin, Steven J. Frenda, Mark Jesus M Magbanua, Jennifer Daubenmier, Ivette Estay, Nancy K. Hills, Nita Chainani-Wu, Peter R. Carroll, and Elizabeth H. Blackburn. “Effect of Comprehensive Lifestyle Changes on Telomerase Activity and Telomere Length in Men with Biopsy-proven Low-risk Prostate Cancer: 5-year Follow-up of a Descriptive

Pilot Study.” The Lancet Oncology14, no. 11 (October 2013): 1112-120.