Six Ways to Reduce Biological Age by 5-10 Years

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Everybody has two ages: a “chronological age” and a “biological age.”

Our chronological age represents the number of years we have lived. Our biological age is the age at which our body is effectively functioning. It is our biological age that determines our health, rate of aging, and resistance to disease.
Of course, we cannot stop the passing of time and the addition of years to our lives but we do have control over the speed and intensity at which we age.

Scientists have finally hit on a few key factors that may slow down biological aging by 5-10 years.

How Researchers Figure This Out

Researchers look at DNA to determine an individual's biological age. At the ends of the chromosomes, there are segments of repetitive DNA called telomeres. Telomeres protect the chromosomes from damage that occurs as a result of cell replication and oxidative stress. As these telomeres are damaged through these processes, they become shorter until eventually the cells are destroyed through apoptosis. Correspondingly, the shorter the telomeres are, the "older" the cell is biologically speaking.

omega 3
A new study has linked high blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids with a younger biological age.

Regularly eating foods containing omega-3 fatty acids has already been shown to help protect against many different health conditions, such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, certain cancers, depression, and bipolar disorders, and chronic health problems of the skin, nervous system and immune and inflammatory systems. And now researchers from the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), including Australian Nobel prize-winner Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, have discovered that omega-3s help slow down aging by protecting chromosomes from damage.

The Study: In this study, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco recruited 608 patients with stable coronary artery disease. The researchers measured the length of each participant's telomeres and their blood DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) levels (both are omega-3 fatty acids) at the beginning of the study, and again 5 years later. 

The researchers found that those with the lowest levels of the omega-3s in their blood had the most rapid shortening of the telomeres. Conversely, those with the highest blood levels of omega-3s had the longest telomeres, indicating greater biological youth. Small increases in the omega-3s caused significant changes in the relative telomere shortening. The researchers stated that each standard deviation increase in total DHA and EPA levels "was associated with a 32% reduction in the odds of telomere shortening." A significant risk reduction.
See Amazon's section on Omega 3 Fatty Acids.

green tea
The cells of regular tea drinkers may have a younger biological age than cells from non-drinkers, according to research from China. Researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong looked at the length of telomeres.

The Study: The study’s findings are based on the telomere lengths of 976 Chinese men and 1,030 Chinese women aged over 65. The participants’ dietary habits were evaluated using a food frequency questionnaire.
Overall, only tea consumption was associated with telomere length. The highest intakes, three cups or 750 millilitres per day, was associated with significantly longer telomere lengths, compared with people who drank 70 millilitres per day or less, said the researchers. 

The Hong Kong-based researchers, led by Ruth Chan, noted that the telomeres of people who drank an average of three cups of tea per day were significantly longer than people who drank an average of a quarter of a cup a day.
This average difference in the telomere length corresponds to “approximately a difference of 5 years of life”, wrote the researchers, led by Ruth Chan.
Dr Chan told NutraIngredients that "Chinese tea" in their study refers to both black and green tea, but added: "Our data showed that the majority of Chinese tea consumed by our subjects was green tea."
See Amazon's section on Green Tea.

multi vitamins
The cells of multivitamin users may have a younger biological age than cells from non-users, according to research from the US National Instiute of Environmental Health Sciences.
According to results the telomeres of daily multivitamin users may be on average 5.1 per cent longer than in non-users.

"To our knowledge, this was the first epidemiologic study of multivitamin use and telomere length,” wrote Dr Chen and his co-workers. “Regular multivitamin users tend to follow a healthy lifestyle and have a higher intake of micronutrients, which sometimes makes it difficult to interpret epidemiologic observations on multivitamin use. 

The Study: Dr Chen and his co-workers analysed multivitamin use and nutrient intakes, as well as telomere length of 586 women aged between 35 and 74 in the Sister Study. A 146-item food-frequency questionnaire was used to determine multivitamin use and nutrient intakes.
Compared to non-multivitamin users, the researchers noted that that telomeres were on average 5.1 per cent longer for daily multivitamin users. In an attempt to identify specific nutrients that could be behind the observations, a positive relationship between telomere length and intakes of vitamins C and E from foods was observed.
See Amazon's section on Multivitamins. A whole food supplement in recommended.

exercise
Being physically active may shave 10 years off your biological age, a study shows.

The Study: Cherkas and colleagues studied some 2,400 adult British twins who provided blood samples and completed surveys about their physical activity, smoking, and health history. The researchers used the blood samples to measure the length of telomeres on the participants' white blood cells.
The study shows that physically active people had longer telomeres than sedentary people, regardless of age, sex, smoking, BMI (body mass index), or socioeconomic status.

The telomere length difference "suggests that inactive subjects may be biologically older by 10 years compared with more active subjects," the researchers write. But the study doesn't prove that. Participants weren't followed over time, so it's not clear who lived longest.
"Persons who exercise are different from sedentary persons in many ways," writes Jack Guralnik, MD, PhD, of the National Institute on Aging, in an editorial published with the study.

Telomeres aside, plenty of studies have linked physical activity to better health. For instance, physical activity was recently named one of four steps to living 14 years longer.
See Amazon's section on Exercise.

calorie restriction
Research on specific communites such as, Caucasus in Georgia, Vilcabamba in Ecuador and Hunza in the Himalayas have proven that calorie restriction increases lifepan. These communities achieve longevity because of their diets' low calorific value (below 2000).

Many animal studies have been conducted that support a calorie reduction diet in increasing lifespan. In mice, calorie restriction from an early age raises the maximum life span from 39 months to 56 months and at the same time preserves what passes for intellectual function: a three-year-old calorie-restricted mouse, for example, can negotiate a maze with the quickness and ease of a normally fed mouse of six months.

 
Caloric restriction (CR) retards several aspects of the aging process in mammals, including age-related mortality, tumorigenesis, physiological decline, and the establishment of age-related transcriptional profiles. Calorie restriction will, for instance, increase both average and maximum life spans, and the fewer calories consumed, the greater the increase; it will reduce the occurrence of virtually all age-related diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer. It will prevent kidney disease and cataracts as well as the development of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. It will lower blood cholesterol and forestall the age-related deterioration of the immune system.
The two caveats are that the later in life the animals start on caloric restriction, the less the benefit, and that the diets must include plentiful amounts of vitamins and minerals. The animals must be undernourished without being malnourished, as calorie-restriction researchers say.
See Amazon's section on Calorie Restriction.

love
Mammalian babies from bunnies to chimpanzees fail to develop normally if they are deprived of their mother's love. Although we are not usually accustomed to considering love in scientific terms, over the past twenty-five years, scientific studies have provided indisputable evidence that the experience of love has profound life-supporting effects on our physiology.

Studies: Scientific studies show that by merely observing acts of compassion, your immunity is enhanced. David McClelland of Harvard University found that college students increase their production of salivary antibodies when watching a film of Mother Teresa comforting a child, whereas their antibody levels are depressed when watching war scenes. 

David Spiegel's studies from Stanford University have taught us that women facing metastatic cancer who participate in caring support groups live, on average, twice as long as those who do not. We know that men suffering from heart attacks who believe that their wives love them do better than those who don't, and a simple monthly phone call from a caring cardiac nurse can double the survival time of a heart patient. 

Even studies with animals found that tenderness and affection can reduce their risk for disease. In an intriguing study from Ohio State University, two groups of rabbits were fed a high-cholesterol diet. In one group the rabbits were regularly petted and cuddled by the animal technicians. Rabbits in the other group, fed the identical diet, did not receive any petting.
At the completion of the study, the rabbits that were treated tenderly had only 10 percent as much fat deposits into their blood vessels as their touch-deficient peers. Love is metabolized into physiology and can make the difference between health and sickness, life and death.