11 replies to this topic

[ajnast4r]

http://www.washingto...8091601497.html

TUESDAY, Sept. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Major lifestyle changes can help improve levels of an enzyme called telomerase that controls cell aging, say California researchers.

Telomerase repairs and lengthens telomeres, which are DNA-protein complexes at the end of chromosomes that directly affect how quickly cells age. As telomeres become shorter and their structural integrity weakens, cells age and die more quickly, according to background information in a University of California, Irvine, new release. Shortening of telomeres is emerging as a marker of disease risk and premature death in many types of cancer, including prostate, lung, breast and colorectal cancers.

In this study, Dr. Dean Ornish, a professor of medicine at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif., and his colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, asked 30 men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer to make significant lifestyle changes.
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The changes included eating a diet with only 10 percent of calories from fat, low in refined sugars, and rich in whole foods, fruit and vegetables. They supplemented their diet with vitamins and fish oil and did moderate aerobic exercise, stress management, relaxation techniques, and breathing exercises.

The men's telomerase levels were measured at the start of the study and again at three months. At that time, the researchers found a 29 percent increase in telomerase levels and a decrease in "bad" (LDL) cholesterol.

The findings were published online and will appear in the November print issue ofThe Lancet Oncology.

"To our knowledge, we have reported here the first longitudinal study showing that comprehensive lifestyle changes -- or any intervention -- are significantly associated with increases in cellular telomerase activity levels and telomere maintenance capacity in immune system cells," the study authors wrote.

"The implications of this study are not limited to men with prostate cancer. Comprehensive lifestyle changes may cause improvements in telomerase and telomeres that may be beneficial to the general population as well," Ornish said in the news release.

[lucid]

Beat me to the post. I was going to post this earlier today but the site was down.

I particularly note that there were stress reduction techniques. There have been quite a few studies previously showing that those (women were used in the study that I am thinking of) had less telomerase and shorter telomeres in their leukocytes if they were chronically stressed than if they weren't. In fact I recall the results being about 8 years of 'age equivalent' decline in telomerase amount and telomere length if one was stressed. I can't remember if they ran a controlled trial with intervention. There may have also been a study done on meditation and telomeres. I'll go dig it up if someone is interested.

[ajnast4r]

. There may have also been a study done on meditation and telomeres. I'll go dig it up if someone is interested.

i would love to read it

[wydell]

. There may have also been a study done on meditation and telomeres. I'll go dig it up if someone is interested.

i would love to read it

An ornish quote if true would imply that no such study has been done yet.

"This is the first study showing that anything can increase telomerase. If it were a new drug that had been shown to do this, it would be a billion-dollar drug. But this is something that people can do for free." Ornish said"


Though it would not surprise me if mediation increases telomerase given that psychological stress tends to decrease it.


Edit (spelling)

Edited by wydell, 17 September 2008 - 04:59 AM.

[lucid]

The study showing that stress decreases telomerase and shortens telomeres:

Accelerated telomere shortening in response to life stress

Numerous studies demonstrate links between chronic stress and indices of poor health, including risk factors for cardiovascular disease and poorer immune function. Nevertheless, the exact mechanisms of how stress gets “under the skin” remain elusive. We investigated the hypothesis that stress impacts health by modulating the rate of cellular aging. Here we provide evidence that psychological stress— both perceived stress and chronicity of stress—is significantly associated with higher oxidative stress, lower telomerase activity, and shorter telomere length, which are known determinants of cell senescence and longevity, in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy premenopausal women. Women with the highest levels of perceived stress have telomeres shorter on average by the equivalent of at least one decade of additional aging compared to low stress women. These findings have implications for understanding how, at the cellular level, stress may promote earlier onset of age-related diseases.

http://www.pnas.org/.../17312.abstract
A summary by Dr. Sapolsky:

From the intersection of these two disparate fields comes a remarkable finding, namely that those women who were more stressed, by both an objective and subjective measure, had shorter telomeres and less telomerase activity in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and had more oxidative stress in urine by the amount of a marker of oxidative damage divided by a marker of antioxidant potential). The oxidative endpoint is important, given that oxidative damage to elomerase decreases its enzymatic activity and is thought to play a role in the age-related decline in telomerase activity.

From his paper:
Organismal stress and telomeric aging:
Organismal stress and telomeric aging: An unexpected connection
http://www.pnas.org/.../17323.full.pdf

As to the meditation study, I chased down where I heard it. Mattieu Ricard's google talk 48:00 minutes in.
http://video.google....079446171087119
He says that the study is not done yet, but he says that there were powerful preliminary results. I can't find any trace of an actual study a year later so i don't know. Perhaps someone knows how to contact someone from the mind life institute.

[Mind]

Interesting that this Ornish research came out the same week that Dr. Davis was interviewed on The Sunday Evening Update. He was not favorable toward Ornish's advocacy of an extremely low fat diet to combat heart disease. Video here, interview starts about 10 minutes in.

This is quite a small study. It would be interesting to see a larger study where fat consumption was controlled for. Also, does more telomerase automatically mean longer telomeres?, especially in an older organism, where other damage and gene regulation changes may be affecting cell function and DNA repair.

[malbecman]

I thought it was a pretty promising first look. Certainly warrants further investigation. Here is the abstract of the paper, its in Lancet Oncology

Lancet Oncol. 2008 Sep 15.
Increased telomerase activity and comprehensive lifestyle changes: a pilot study.
Ornish D, Lin J, Daubenmier J, Weidner G, Epel E, Kemp C, Magbanua MJ, Marlin R, Yglecias L, Carroll PR, Blackburn EH.
Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA; Preventive Medicine Research Institute, Sausalito, CA, USA.

BACKGROUND: Telomeres are protective DNA-protein complexes at the end of linear chromosomes that promote chromosomal stability. Telomere shortness in human beings is emerging as a prognostic marker of disease risk, progression, and premature mortality in many types of cancer, including breast, prostate, colorectal, bladder, head and neck, lung, and renal cell. Telomere shortening is counteracted by the cellular enzyme telomerase. Lifestyle factors known to promote cancer and cardiovascular disease might also adversely affect telomerase function. However, previous studies have not addressed whether improvements in nutrition and lifestyle are associated with increases in telomerase activity. We aimed to assess whether 3 months of intensive lifestyle changes increased telomerase activity in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). METHODS: 30 men with biopsy-diagnosed low-risk prostate cancer were asked to make comprehensive lifestyle changes. The primary endpoint was telomerase enzymatic activity per viable cell, measured at baseline and after 3 months. 24 patients had sufficient PBMCs needed for longitudinal analysis. This study is registered on the ClinicalTrials.gov website, number NCT00739791. FINDINGS: PBMC telomerase activity expressed as natural logarithms increased from 2.00 (SD 0.44) to 2.22 (SD 0.49; p=0.031). Raw values of telomerase increased from 8.05 (SD 3.50) standard arbitrary units to 10.38 (SD 6.01) standard arbitrary units. The increases in telomerase activity were significantly associated with decreases in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (r=-0.36, p=0.041) and decreases in psychological distress (r=-0.35, p=0.047). INTERPRETATION: Comprehensive lifestyle changes significantly increase telomerase activity and consequently telomere maintenance capacity in human immune-system cells. Given this finding and the pilot nature of this study, we report these increases in telomerase activity as a significant association rather than inferring causation. Larger randomised controlled trials are warranted to confirm the findings of this study. FUNDING: US Department of Defense (US Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity W81XWH-05-1-0375, Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD, USA); Henry M Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (contract 56422; Rockville MD, USA) from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the National Institutes of Health (grant number K01AT004199; Bethesda, MD, USA); Bahna Foundation (Stamford, CT, USA); DeJoria Foundation (Los Angeles, CA, USA); Kerzner Foundation (New York, NY, USA); Bernard Osher Foundation (San Francisco, CA, USA); Walton Family Foundation (Bentonville, AK, USA); Jeff Walker Family Foundation (Wilton, CT, USA); Safeway Foundation (Pleasanton, CA, USA).

PMID: 18799354

[Hoppipolla]

Hey, sorry to kinda revive this thread, but I was just wondering about normal levels of telomerase.

So, is it in our BLOOD all the time, or in our average cells (in small amounts I guess?) all the time?

Because surely if just living a good life and not stressing can increase telomerase, then doesn't it stand to reason that merely boosting your telomerase (with a supplement or whatever) by say 20% can't really be that harmful?

Edited by Hoppipolla, 29 March 2010 - 10:37 PM.

[niner]

Hey, sorry to kinda revive this thread, but I was just wondering about normal levels of telomerase.

So, is it in our BLOOD all the time, or in our average cells (in small amounts I guess?) all the time?

Because surely if just living a good life and not stressing can increase telomerase, then doesn't it stand to reason that merely boosting your telomerase (with a supplement or whatever) by say 20% can't really be that harmful?

Not to worry, sometimes it's good to revive an old thread. This was a good one. The gene for telomerase is in every cell, but it may or may not be expressed. Telomerase wouldn't be found in in the acellular fraction of the blood, but the cellular fraction would have the gene at minimum, and the protein would be expressed in at least some cells. In the vast majority of cells, increasing telomerase activity would not be harmful. It's the few cancer cells that are the worry. Also, we don't know if a supplement or whatever would increase telomerase activity uniformly by 20%, or if it would be unchanged in most cells but increased hugely in a few. It is certainly interesting that they are seeing telomerase activity increase. I wonder if it would be possible to relate it to telomere length in this case. IIRC, telomere length was also associated with healthier lifestyle in a different study.

[aribadabar]

Dr Greger's latest video on the topic:
https://www.youtube....h?v=HrFNqHJja_I

 

 

[lucid]

Good video, doesn't solve the confounding variable issue yet.

[jroseland]

Can't you buy Telomerase? I seem to recall it was mad expensive