Telomeres: The Tale of YOUR Tape

Live longer, telomerically speaking

Almost every cell in your body contains DNA. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, a hereditary material found in almost all living things. DNA is tightly packed in special thread-like structures called chromosomes. Each cell has 23 pairs of chromosomes, giving us a total of 46. These chromosomes are located in the nucleus of each cell. Since DNA is tightly packed, chromosomes prevent it from unpacking.

What are telomeres then? Telomeres are repetitive segments of DNA located at the ends of chromosomes. Telomeres protect like the way aglets (plastic at the end of your shoelace) keep your shoelaces from loosening up or unravelling. They’re an integral part of the structure of chromosomes.

Why are they essential for health and longevity?

When cells in your body divide, DNA segments are inevitably lost from the ends of telomeres on each chromosome. As we grow older, the telomeres become shorter because of these losses. These losses are increased when cells experience certain factors, like oxidative stress and chronic inflammation. Your telomeres do try to keep up by replicating lost DNA segments.

There will come a time when your telomeres become too short and can no longer afford to lose any DNA segments; hence, the entire chromosome can’t replicate. At this time, the telomeres have reached what is called critical length of the chromosome and the chromosome will signal the cell that it’s time to die (called apoptosis, programmed cell death).

Telomeres are essential for health and longevity because they may be able to slow down ageing and extend our life span. Who wouldn’t want that? The problem is, how can we take good care of something (telomeres) that we can’t even see or feel?

Factors that Influence Our Telomeres

The premise is that the longer the telomeres you have, the more chances of you living longer.

Oxidative stress and chronic inflammation. According to a study published in Nature, International Journal of Science (2010), oxidative stress and chronic inflammation are two factors that work hand in hand to cause DNA damage with possible loss of long DNA segments at the telomeres during cell division. Oxidative stress happens when there’s a sharp increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) beyond your body’s capability to eliminate them. Much worse is that your body is unable to repair the damage they have done to DNA, lipids, and proteins.

Chronic inflammation can be secondary to a multitude of things. Excess sugar consumption, chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes, infection, injury, and exposure to toxins are just a few examples that may lead to chronic inflammation. No matter what the cause of chronic inflammation is, there will always be some form of damage that will be left behind that may be beyond your body’s ability to repair it.

A study published online in the journal Genes (2016) has indicated that chronic inflammation is responsible for the enzyme telomerase to misbehave and not do its job properly. Telomerase is tasked to maintain the length of telomeres by continuously adding DNA sequences. Think of it as the chromosome repairman.
Smoking. Did you know that smoking is the single biggest preventable cause of cancer? The chemicals found in cigarette smoke get into your body and may cause different types of cancer (at least 15 different types). Unfortunately, smoking also affects the length of your telomeres in the opposite direction. This is especially true in the case of lung cancer (adenocarcinoma type) wherein a study published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics (2015) found that the cancer cells have very long telomeres giving them the capacity to divide uncontrollably making them almost immortal. This isn’t true for all cancers related to smoking. A study published in the journal Prostate (2017) found that prostate cancer cells have highly variable telomere lengths. Prostate cancers of this type have a worse prognosis. Stop smoking!
Lifestyle. The choices we make every day affect how we age in simple and complicated terms. Better choices around what and how much you eat for example has tremendous potential to decrease the rate of how your telomeres shorten. This can indirectly lead to delayed development of age-related diseases and consequently a longer lifespan.
Gender. Women live longer than men. What a cliché, huh? Seriously though, the scientific proof behind this cliché may have already been determined. Science dictates that both men and women have equal telomere lengths when we are born. Sometime during adulthood, women tend to have longer telomere lengths than men.
Genetics. Another factor that may not come as a surprise is that the length of your telomeres is genetically determined. Its heritability estimates can range from 45% to 80%.
Age. Your telomeres get shorter as you age. It’s fascinating to note that women older than 80 years and men older than 75 years tend to have longer telomeres than their younger counterparts. This hints that those who survive to older age have longer telomeres.

Top Longevity Tips based on the Latest Telomere Research Studies

Use supplements. There’s no 100% guarantee that they will lengthen your telomeres (or life), but they can have positive effects on how you look and age gracefully. There is scientific data supporting their ability to boost your body’s natural anti-ageing processes. Supplements enable this by supplying your body with the raw material needed to produce its own antioxidants. For example, NAC (N-acetylcysteine) because it aids your body’s production of glutathione. Also, a dose of omega-3 fatty acid supplements can help in decreasing chronic inflammation.

Keep your weight within a healthy range. Use your BMI (body mass index) as a rough guide to maintaining a healthy weight. The worst type of fat is belly fat (visceral fat), it’s the one you don’t see and is hugging your internal organs. Who would have thought hugging something or somebody can be a bad thing? Belly fat releases huge amounts of adipocytokines that produce oxidative stress on your cells, which damage the chromosomes, including the telomeres.
Exercise on a regular basis. A research study done at Brigham Young University in 2017 found that those who exercise regularly have telomeres with a biological ageing advantage of nine years on the average over those who are sedentary. To count as exercise in their study, you have to have 30 minutes of moderate exercise for women and 40 minutes for men, 5 days per week. Exercise indirectly reduces chronic inflammation and oxidative stress.

Keep stress levels down. We all get stressed out once in a while. It’s a part of life that will make you grow as a person and enable you to achieve your full potential. We all have to learn how to manage stress, chronic stress in particular. How you can manage your chronic stress.

Don’t make what experts are calling a stress soup – a mixture of high cortisol levels ( stress hormone), elevated insulin, oxidative stress, and chronic inflammation in your system. When combined, they work synergistically to shorten the length of your telomeres. Also, chronic stress leads to the production of NPY (neuropeptide Y), a biochemical that activates the cells in your belly fat to increase in numbers.
Sleep longer. Sleep is an often-neglected necessity in our daily living. We underestimate the value of sleep in improving our health and prolonging our lifespan. The length of your telomeres is affected by the duration of your sleep. According to a study on the link between the two done in 2015 and published in the journal Sleep, aim for roughly more than 7 hours of sleep to have better chances of having longer telomeres. If you lose a lot of sleep or have frequent interruptions at night, you tend to have shorter telomeres.
Formulate your own telomere-lengthening whole food salad. Whole foods are the best way to fight chronic inflammation and oxidative stress because of food synergy. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition describes food synergy as a relatively new concept that states that you benefit more from whole foods because of how nutrients interact with each other compared to eating them separately.

A Measuring Tape for Your Telomere

All this talk about telomere length may make you wonder if you might be able to measure its length. Is this possible? Yes. But it’s not as simple as you may think. There are tests that can be done to know your average telomere length (ATL) and be able to compare it to other averages within your age group. It would be best to consult a knowledgeable healthcare provider about these tests and how to interpret the results.

Don’t spend all your time focusing singly on how to increase the length of your telomeres. Don’t forget there are modifiable (lifestyle) and non-modifiable factors (age, gender, genetics). Take the bits of information in this article as part of a whole on what you can do to have a longer lifespan and delay ageing.