Study Links Diet & Lifestyle to Cellular Aging

We all know that eating the right foods and getting regular exercise is good for us, even if we don't always do it. Sort of like flossing. But a recent study by researchers at the University of California San Francisco might give you the bit of additional motivation you need.

The study concluded that relatively small changes to diet and lifestyle can have a major effect on aging down to the cellular level. And perhaps can not only slow it, but even reverse it. Our body's ability to produce a steady supply of healthy new cells to replace those that wear out is perhaps the primary factor in determining how quickly we age. Not in a chronological sense, of course, but in a biological one.

 “So often people think ‘Oh, I have bad genes, there’s nothing I can do about it,’” said Dean Ornish, MD, study author and a clinical professor of medicine at UCSF, said in a statement. “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 longer life.”

That seems like quite a bonus for doing a few things you really should be doing anyway.

How Much Time Have You Got?

I have a real problem with procrastination. Working from a home office compounds this, as there always seems to be some distraction or other that offers an excuse to put something off. And, well, there is always tomorrow, right? Wrong.

We all know we are not going to live forever. But we often seem to live day-by-day as though we were. Would we see things differently if we head, literally, a deadline? If we knew how much time we had left?

The internet is a marvelous place. Frighteningly so at times. I recently was introduced to something called The Death Clock. By completing a very brief survey on your lifestyle and current situation, it makes an actuarial forecast of the day on which you will run out of time. It sounds gruesome, but I have found it to be quite the opposite.

First, I was gratified to learn that I had nearly 20 years left to go. And second, knowing this, I am starting to see "today" through a whole different lens. 4, 500 days might seem like a lot of time if its the time till your next vacation. But when that is the time remaining in your life, each of those days assumes a whole new level of urgency and importance.

If you'd like to take a look into your own future, any of the links below will be a good place to start. You can even get a clock widget for your PC or phone - just in case you don't want to miss a second.

http://www.deathclock.cc/            

http://www.death-clock.org/             

Moble Widget

You can also find apps in the Apple or Google stores. Or just Google "Death Clock".

Have fun with this and I will see you around. As long as its before March, 2030.

Does High Cholesterol Really Cause Heart Disease?

Total cholesterol level is probably the health related number that most people are familiar with. Many people know their number and accept as an article of faith that lower total cholesterol improves their odds of avoiding cardiovascular disease. But is it really so?

In fact cholesterol (both the "bad" LDL kind and the "good" HDL) play important roles in the body. Cholesterol is required for the building of healthy new cells, and is closely involved in the production of Vitamin D and several hormones. It functions as an anti-oxidant as well as catalyzing the production of bile - which allows us to digest fats. It helps us absorb calcium and is involved in effective synaptic function in the brain. None of us would live very well or very long without it.

More to the point, cholesterol, specifically LDL cholesterol, is used by the body to repair inflammation induced lesions in the vascular system. "Dr. Mary Enig, suggests that blaming cholesterol for heart disease is something akin to blaming firefighters for fires. The key to stopping heart disease is to stop the lesions (fires) in the arteries from occurring in the first place (Full article)." And the key to that is reducing inflammation, not lowering cholesterol. The famous Framinghan Heart Study results show that about half the participants who had high cholesterol levels suffered no coronary events, while about half the people who did had cholesterol levels well within the normal range.

Meanwhile, the evidence that lowering cholesterol levels reduces the incidence of cardiovascular disease is at best mixed. There is some (although not conclusive) support for the idea that people with existing cardiovascular disease benefit from lowering cholesterol (primary prevention), but little support for the proposition that it lowers risk in people without any pre-existing condition (secondary prevention). The primary medical treatment for high cholesterol is the administration of statin drugs and "the National Cholesterol Education Program revised its guidelines to recommend statins as primary prevention. Although the panel cited randomized trials to support statin therapy for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease, a report in Lancet notes, "not one of the studies provides such evidence." Journalists have questioned the interests of the doctors who made such recommendations, as eight of the 9 doctors on the panel were discovered to have been paid by statin manufacturers. (Full article)" More recently, AstraZenica, the manufacturer of the statin Crestor, has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration for approval to recommend Crestor as a preventive measure to people as young as 25 with no personal or family history of heart disease. According the the Journal of the American Medical Association, the use of statin drugs has increased 10-fold in people 45 years of age or older.

Statin therapy involves known risks and numerous serious side effects. It is one thing to take this risk in exchange for a significant benefit - avoiding cardiovascular disease. But if in fact the culprit is inflammation, then the whole cholesterol obsession starts to feel like a scam - albeit a very profitable one. As always, educate yourself and make up your own mind. Caveat patientes.

The Happiness Habit

What is the difference between a happy person and a negative, dissatisfied, dis-empowered one? Is it money? I'm thinking not. Some of my happiest experiences were during and after college when $20 was a fortune to me. Is it a great job? I dunno, my best job was certainly not my happiest time. I was traveling constantly, had no social or family life. I know, its luck, right? People are happy because good things happen to happen to them!

Or maybe, as Dr. Steve Maraboli suggests in Five Life-Changing Dynamics, happiness is a choice. And the more of a habit you make of choosing happy, the happier you get.

Hope vs Hopelessness

I was sitting out at our local AAA baseball stadium on a perfect summer afternoon with a few friends and we got to talking about how it was possible that huge numbers of Americans were facing a retirement of, if not outright poverty, at least greatly diminished expectations. These were not, by-and-large, lazy gits who just never paid attention. Mostly they are ordinary people who worked at various jobs all their adult lives, and now they are facing ritirement with nothing - or not enough - set aside. Why wasn't there a huge outcry about this? "Because," one of my friends opined, "they have given up. Nothing they have tried has worked out. They've just lost hope."

It took a few days for this to really sink in for me. America has always been a hopeful society. We expected more, we expected better. Each generation building on the work of those who came before. Have we lost this vital aspect of our national character? Have we really given up trying because we've given up hope? Has cynicism become so widespread as that? Raising a generation of children so poorly nourished that, for the first time ever, they are not expected to live as long as their parents. Drastically lowered expectations of financial progress, or even basic security. The feeling, more and more frequently expressed, that "everyone is cheating everyone else". Unemployment dragging on now for years with no real end in sight. Fighting over shares of what is increasingly viewed as a smaller pie. Is this the future we are going to accept? Have we really given up?

In Proverbs 29:18 the bible cautions us that "Where there is no vision, the people perish." How is your vision? Are you making progress? Are you on your way? Is your tomorrow going to be better than today? Or have you lost hope that you will ever realize it?

As we move now from summer to the near perfect days of autumn, what better time to take stock. If your vision and attitude and outlook need a tuneup, now is the time. Remember, vision is your dream and attitude is your choice. Don't let yourself be drawn into the negativity and hopelessness that seem to be all around us. Surround yourself with positive people, places and ideas and then go build your dreams. Life, after all, is simply a brief vacation from death. Make the most of it.

"Everything that is done in the world is done by hope." - Martin Luther

Epigenetics Explained -- Sort Of

Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype, caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence. It refers to functionally relevant modifications to the genome that do not involve a change in the nucleotide sequence. Gene expression can be controlled through the action of repressor proteins that attach to silencer regions of the DNA. These changes may remain through cell divisions for the remainder of the cell's life and may also last for multiple generations. However, there is no change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism.

Eyes glazed over? Have a look at this video for a simple and entertaining explanation of epigenetics for those of us who are not research scientists.

5 Good Reasons to Eat Less (Or No) Red Meat

A nice rare steak or a hamburger with the works is so American one might easily assume it is a right enshrined in the Constitution. "Meat and Potatoes" defines a certain sort of person. And seriously, can you picture the Marlboro Man  chowing down on a juicy tofu burger? Of course not. But then the Marlboro Man is dead. And according to a 2012 Harvard School of Public Health study the people who eat the most red meat have a 30% greater chance of joining him in any given year than the people who eat the least. "Eating red meat increases the chance of dying early," says study co-author Adam Bernstein. "We estimated that ... 10% of deaths in men could be prevented if they consumed less than half a serving of red meat per day. That's remarkable."

And if that is not remarkable enough for you, evidence that red meat threatens public health in other significant ways is both surprising and disturbing.

So here are my 5 Top Reasons to eat less red meat - or swear off it altogether.

1. Antibiotic Resistance
    Margaret Chan is the Director-General of the UN World Health
    Organization. Last year she issued a dire warning that got almost
    no media coverage. The world is facing, she said, "and end to
    modern medicine as we know it. Strep throats could once again
    kill people, and hip replacements, organ transplants and cancer
    chemotherapy would become far more difficult, or even too
    dangerous to undertake." The cause of this alarming suggestion?
    We are losing our first line of antibiotic drugs to ever increasing
    strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria. As for new drugs to fight
    the threat, Chan was not optimistic. "The pipeline is virtually dry.
    The cupboard is bare."

    Part of the problem is simply overuse by doctors and patients
    (even for things that the drugs have no impact on, like viruses,
    and as a preventive step of dubious value). But 3/4 of the
    antibiotics used in the US today are given not to people but to
    livestock. And antibiotic resistant bacteria are now showing up
    with regularity in the meat at your local supermarket. E-coli
    has been detected in around 3/2 of the beef and 40% of the pork
    tested at markets. And about half of the samples were resistant
    to antibiotics - about triple the percentage found in 2002.

    Antibiotics are not only used to treat sick animals but also given
    in low doses to encourage faster, larger growth. In the 1990s,
    Denmark banned the use of antibiotics in animals other than to
    treat the sick ones. The impact on their livestock industry was
    approximately nothing. Why can't we do that in the US? Good
    question. Meanwhile, if you intend to continue eating red meat,
    be sure it is thoroughly cooked before you do - this kills most
    bacteria. And maybe spring for organically raised, antibiotic free
    meat. Its not just about you, this effects us all.

2. Live a Healthier Life
    The list of serious health issues to which red meat is a significant
    contributor is long. Vascular and heart disease, stroke, cancer and
    diabetes top the list. Meat eaters as a group also tend to be more
    overweight than non or occasional consumers. If you would rather
    die than give up red meat, there is some good news. "You don't
    have to stop eating meat entirely," says Walter Willett, chair of the
    nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health.
    "Eating meat only once a week eliminates most of the risk." Try to
    remember though what a "serving" is. Its about 4 ounces. Not a 24
    ounce porterhouse.

3. Live a Longer Life
    In addition to the Harvard study cited earlier, a 2012 National
    Institutes of Health study reaches similar conclusions. The study
    estimated that replacing just 1 serving per day of red meat with
    other foods (including fish and poultry) reduces mortality 7% -
    19%. As a bonus, your longer life will also be a healthier one.

4. Live on a Healthier Planet
    The beef industry is a major contributor to climate change and
    global warming. Deforestation, water use (it takes about 1,300
    gallons of water to produce one pound of beef), methane
    production (23 times the heat trapping capacity of carbon
    dioxide), pollution from nitrate fertilizers used to grow feed,
    solid waste and the transportation of feed, animals and meat
    products are all significant environmental issues.

5. Save Money
    Since I have cut back on eating red meat to one or two times per
    month (hey, what can I say?) my weekly grocery bill has
    declined by about 15%. I've also been forced to be more creative
    about finding tasty, satisfying dishes with which to replace the
    steak and hamburgers. The good news is there are lots of them.

The evidence continues to mount that eating a lot less red meat would make us all healthier people.