Breath of Fire

‘The free radicals inside me are freakin', man!’ Jip ~ Human Traffic (1999)

In the previous article in this series on ageing, I introduced the emerging science of Telomeres and their integral role in the ageing process. I also stated that there were a few currently known causes of Telomere shortening. In order to achieve healthy longevity, you’re going to need to plan your journey to avoid the major pitfalls. The principle source of jeopardy in this Odyssey of Life is Oxidation.

Oxidation is a double edged sword. This sword in untrained hands can cause much unwanted destruction, even to the holder. But the same sword wielded by a skilful Gladiator can be used with crucial precision.

Oxidation is essential for life, a process we should seek to maximise. Unharnessed, however, it can snuff you out rapidly. Let’s have a brief look at this process, so we have a better vantage point to plan our route.

Oxygen is an essential part of the majority of your energy systems. As I explained in the ‘Lies to Adults’ article, the universal energy currency of your body is adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP), which is one molecule of adenosine attached to three phosphate molecules by a high energy bond. It is in this bond that the captured energy of the sun is stored. When the body requires energy for any process, a signal is sent to instruct a phosphate group to fire off of ATP, releasing the stored energy. We are then left with a chemical called adenosine di-phosphate (ADP). This needs to be ‘recharged’ into ATP, by re-attaching a phosphate, in order for the energy cycle to continue.

We have a few ways of achieving this, but we’ll keep it simple, and just focus on the process most relevant to our discussion. This process is the aerobic system that uses glucose/ glycogen and fat as a fuel source. The process of using glucose and fat to recharge ATP occurs by oxidation. As the name implies this is achieved with the use of oxygen. Approximately 95% of this process is an almost perfect system, producing minimal ‘waste’ products. These ‘waste’ products are either recycled by the body to generate beneficial substances or are fairly easily excreted by the body with minimal fuss.

The remaining 5%, however, is as dirty as a politician. Like the analogous politician this process is less disciplined and generates a lot of waste and collateral damage. When molecules of oxygen become unstable and escape the energy system, they become what are known as a ‘free radical’. These volatile free radicals are like a bull in china shop, although instead of simply breaking fine porcelain, they cause unwanted chemical reactions that damage you.

You will have seen this process occurring every day. Cut open an apple and within minutes it will have begun to brown. This is a result of oxidation. Ever wondered why the Statue of Liberty is green? Oxidation. The Statue of liberty like your central heating pipes is made of copper; the oxidation of the copper skin has formed a green patina that is now the recognisable exterior of this famous monument. It’s a pervasive corrosive process that we have to encounter daily.

To explain how free radicals do their damage, we have to very gently touch on a smidgeon of chemistry, I’ll attempt to keep the touch light. Each stable atom in your body has a field of electrons smeared around its nucleus. It’s easiest to imagine them as opposing pairs that balance each other in a sort of electromagnetic see-saw.

In this balanced scenario, the electrons can enjoy the ride, at the same time as fulfilling very important functions. Free radicals, however, disturb this merry jaunt. When an atom gains or loses an electron, its electromagnetic charge becomes unbalanced. Imagine being on a see-saw (an atom) and your partner (an electron) is suddenly removed or another person joins them. You’re either going to come down to earth with a bump or alternatively be propelled off of the see-saw up into the ether. To stop the see-saw from becoming unbalanced, you have two options, you can ask a partner to join you from another see-saw, or try to throw one of your partners onto another see-saw. This then upsets the balance of that see-saw, who has to go through the same process to avoid being unbalanced. This then sets up a chain reaction of imbalance throughout the entire playground.

This chain reaction causes damage throughout the body, especially structures that are easily oxidised (see-saws that are easily unbalanced). One of these structures is Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA), the blueprint of ‘you’. Especially oxidisable is the Telomere portion of the DNA strand, due to its high proportion of Guanine. Remember that telomeres end in about 300 repeats of the Guanine subunit. This oxidation shortens the Telomere. Shortened Telomeres, as we know, are bad news.

So, we process the majority of our energy using oxygen, but this same process is slowly cooking us from the inside, essentially burning the wick of our Life candle (Telomeres). Why would Nature settle upon this system? Well, without this imbalance nothing would happen. Try walking without unbalancing yourself, it doesn’t happen, you can’t move from the spot. The key is controlling the imbalance. And Nature, ever the gift bearer, has provided us with a means to maintain just the right level of imbalance.

The balancing pole provided for our tightrope walk through life is a group of molecules called ‘Antioxidants’. In the next article we’ll look at the science of these balancing poles and how they enable our candle wick to hold the flame of Life.

Hayflick (un)limit(ed)

 

Time and tide wait for no man ~ Unknown

In 1961 Dr Leonard Hayflick demonstrated that a population of normal human fetal cells in a cell culture divide between 40 and 60 times. After this it then enters a senescence phase. Cellular senescence is a state where the cell is unable to replicate itself (mitotic division), so it either dies due to un-repairable damage or pre-empting this, because it may negatively affect the organism (You), commits suicide (apotosis) to ensure the organisms survival. Since we are all made of cells, this is fairly pertinent to every single one of us.

How this occurs is that with each mitotic division, a segment on the end of the DNA of the cell called a Telomere shortens. Telomere shortening in humans eventually makes cell division impossible, it is this shortened state that correlates with ageing.

This point of no return was coined the Hayflick limit and suggested a sort of in-built clock of ageing. As always, the devil is in the details, we just have to be smart enough to notice them.

Astute readers would have noticed that the studies used cells in a culture medium. At the time of the study they were using a culture medium that Hayflick and his colleagues thought provided all of the nutrients needed to support a human cell. Not so. They were missing some quite pivotal cast members. I won’t get into which nutrients were missing, we can do that at another time. The point is, by not having the appropriate nutrients present, the functioning of the cell altered so that it was less resilient to the stresses of life, even if that life consisted of living in a petri dish.

However, despite this, Hayflick did show us the mechanism behind ageing. Armed with that information, very smart scientists looked at the routes in which telomeres shorten. It doesn’t just happen in one way, as the saying goes ‘there are many paths to the top of the mountain’. I will show you the main paths in subsequent articles, but if you have being following my recent writing you will notice a trend towards the topic of stress and stress management. I did this for a reason, as current evidence has shown that the two (Stress and Telomere Shortening) are inextricably linked. We will look at this in the next article, but first of all we need to give ourselves a firm grasp of the basic mechanism.

So the question is, what are telomeres, and why is their length so important? Well, the DNA in your body is in the form of a double helix, essentially a two piece plat, like you would do to your hair, or similar to a shoelace. At the end of the plat, to prevent it becoming untangled, a hair-band is usually used. On a shoelace, again to prevent unravelling, we have a cap known as an ‘aiglet’. At the ends of our strands of DNA we have telomeres, whose main function is to prevent chromosome breaks and fusing. This operation helps to promote the genomic stability that we had a cursory glance at in the last article in this series.

Telomeres are non-coding repeating sections of DNA (about 9.000-15,000 repeats of the codons TTAGGG, then finally around 50-300 single repeats of (G)uanine, for those that are interested). As I suggested above, upon each cell division, your telomeres tend to shorten, until they reach a critical length where this informs the cell to cease replication and die off. The shortening occurs because an enzyme called DNA polymerase cannot completely replicate the entire DNA strand, so a little piece is left off each time. Luckily, as mentioned, this part doesn’t code for anything in the body, so you don’t suddenly lose huge chunks of DNA every time a cell divides. There’s method in the seeming madness.

So, since the body is made of systems and systems are a complex array of interplaying tissues, which are made of cells, when too many tissue cells die, organs fail, and generally so do you.  So does this mean that Hayflick was right afterall? Nope. Nature is a savvy mistress, and endowed us, the more fit (in evolutionary terms), to continue to play on this mortal coil, but only if we play by her rules.

Before we look at the rules, let’s look at how Nature helps us avoid the above scenario? Looking at the above situation, it seems that there is an inescapable freefall of bodily function until death. However, even a freefall can be controlled; much like a glider does in the air. Gliding’s good, especially when you’re hurtling, to your death, but we can go one better. What’s better? Let’s add some engines to our glider, so that we can dictate our rate of descent or even ascent. That way, if we hit the right control buttons, we can go as far and wide as we please.      

This engine is called Telomerase. Telomerase is an enzyme that functions in a number of ways, but the one we are most interested in is its effects on Telomere length. Telomerase has the ability to slow the rate of telomere shortening. Even better, it can maintain the length of telomeres. Best of all, it can actually lengthen the telomere. That’s right, you can literally wind back the hands on the clock of aging.

So to prevent ageing, we need to look after our telomeres and attempt to inhibit the processes that cause them to shorten. In addition to this we need to stimulate an increase in the activity and amount of telomerase, to protect and help us re-lengthen already shortened telomeres.

The research into telomeres whilst not new in the sense of our fast paced world, is still embryonic in all actuality. The initial idea was first suggested in the early 1970’s, and it wasn’t until 1978 that actual evidence of their existence was published. It’s only recently with advanced technology that we have been able to start accurately researching this area. But the scientists have been busy and there is a rapidly growing pile of research into this fascinating process.

In the next article, I’ll bring you up to speed about the main known causes of telomere shortening and ways to combat these factors. We’ll also look at the current science in telomerase activation.

Who Wants To Live Forever

 

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.  ~John Barrymore

In the previous article I showed that despite all the fanfare of increased lifespan, we actually haven’t made a lot of progress, if any at all. The perceived extended lifespan is pretty much due to a few factors, lack of a world war for recent generations (therefore not killing off horrific numbers of young people), huge investment in palliative care, and earlier diagnosis of disease, leading to earlier use of the previous item in this trio.

Again with all the talk of ageing, I haven’t seen, correct me if I’m wrong, an accurate description of what ageing actually is in the popular media. Even in general discussion, I still hear from pretty much 99.99 % of all people that they think people can die of old age…

Let me state this very clearly, nobody has ever died of old age. The chronological passing of the illusion that we call time, has never caused anyone to die. We don’t even really have a concrete theory on what time is yet, let alone its influence on human life.

So what is ageing? Ageing is simply two things, disease and damage. When anybody dies it is simply that either disease and/ or damage have got to a point where it can’t be repaired or be endured by the organism.

So to stop ageing, we need to focus on two things, preventing the damage occurring in the first place, and if the damage has occurred repairing the damage. Simples.

To the extent that you achieve the above two points, you can, hypothetically, live indefinitely.

Don’t believe me? Nearly 15 years ago, scientists achieved this in a lab with a nematode (roundworm) called Caenorhabditis elegans.  I’ll get back to this in a moment.

You, yes you, are essentially an immortal anyway.  The germ cells that are in you, are the essentially the DNA from the very first primate, and is still going strong. These germ cells are what are used in sexual replication, and are the only cells that can undergo meiosis (essentially the combination of the DNA from Ovum and Sperm, it’s a little more complicated than that, but that will suffice here), as well as mitosis (normal cell division). Most of the other cells in your body that you are made of are called somatic cells, these can only undergo mitosis.

For these germ cells to essentially achieve immortality they need to pass on accurately their information encoded in the genes. To keep this information accurate, they need to guard its very precise sequence from any disruption. The germ cells have learned to do this very well; if they had not, you would not be here. So what does this have to do with worms?

Well, scientists looked at a few tricks that germ cells performed on maintaining their genetic meticulousness and applied it to the somatic cells in the aforementioned c. elegans. Guess what happened? Even with the limited knowledge we have of the techniques of the germ cells, the ones applied allowed a tripling of the roundworms lifespan. That would see a human living 200 years.

You can read a story about the research here http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/06/researchers-learn-how-mutations-extend-life-span/

So genetic engineering can allow vastly extended lifespan, although I wouldn’t advise undergoing the procedure, even when it becomes commercially available.  You can’t just manipulate a gene and expect it to have one outcome, your body is an interconnected system, it’d be like falling dominoes.

In the absence of genetic engineering, what can we do? Plenty.

Nature has dealt us a loaded hand; we’ve just forgotten to respect the game.  The game has a number of rules, of which I’ll focus on in upcoming articles, and as I promised I’ll point you in the right direction on how to tactically push the boundary but stay within the laws of the game.

I did say I would write about telomeres, but, as I was writing this, I thought that it deserved more than a cursory glance.  The science of telomeres is fascinating and as I’ll show in the next article(s), by following a few simple measures, we can, not only prevent them from shortening, but if already shortened, lengthen them again. As my man Russell Brand would say ‘’ ‘citing ‘’.

The Elixir of Life

 

"I hear a rumour...Jack Sparrow's in London, hell-bent to find the Fountain of Youth." ―Joshamee Gibbs. Pirates of the Caribbean IV ‘On Stranger Tides’.

Was he coming to see me? Maybe. Although had he crossed paths with Ponce De Leon on his voyage, he would’ve been pointed in the opposite direction.

Legend has it that (Juan) Ponce De Leon thought that the Fountain of Youth was in Florida, and that drinking from its waters would restore ones youth.

Had Jack stayed in the Caribbean and spoken to the locals, they may have saved Jackie the trouble of an arduous voyage. The indigenous people had a legend of a mythical land called Bimini flowing with waters that had similar curative properties.

In Ancient Hebrew and Arabic writings there is reference to what is commonly known as the Philosophers Stone but was given many alternate names throughout history. It was thought that ingestion of the Philosophers Stone would regenerate the body to its optimal state. Long after these stories, the 16^th Century became quite a hotbed of research into the Philososphers Stone, in fact, Sir Issac Newton seemed from all accounts more driven by this search than any other.

So, throughout Human history there are numerous stories of eternal youth, advanced age and even immortality. As a species, it seems, we’ve always been fascinated by longevity. But what is the real story of Human longevity?

If you were born in the UK back in the middle-ages, your average life expectancy would have been 35 years.  This is an average, so the large numbers of childhood deaths would skew the figure to the left.  But you would have been quite a rare individual to have made it to our version of ‘middle age’ in the middle-ages.

Fast forward 300 years to the 1900’s. For numerous reasons 20^th Century living endowed ‘older age’ on a larger percentage of the population. At this point the average life expectancy was 47 for gentlemen and 50 for ladies. So in a third of a Millennium, a literal blink of an eye in Human evolution, UK residents had ‘gained’ an additional 15 years. Still, 50, is not really ‘aged’, as we would consider it.

Skipping another century and a bit, where are we at in the UK in the 21^st century? The latest figures I have at hand are for the period 2007-09 which shows that life expectancy is 77.85 for us men, and 82.01 for the women. So in the last century, again due to many reasons, our life expectancy has risen once more by about 30 years.

Not bad.

However…

Life Expectancy is quite an ambiguous term. For example, we can keep people alive using machines for a substantial amount of time even with multiple organ failure. This would obviously increase lifespan, but I think you can see the glaringly obvious problem with that statistic. So, what to do?

Well, we do have a better measure called, surprisingly, Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE). There is also another similar measure called Disability Free Life Expectancy (DFLE), that has a slightly different criteria within its remit. We will stick to the HLE statistic here.

The HLE is a bit more telling. Especially when we look at the ‘at birth’ figures.

Although as we’ve seen, the LE figures have risen, the HLE figures haven’t quite kept pace, not by a long shot. The 2007 figure of HLE is 62.7 years for males and 64.4 years for females. This means that at around 60 years of age, our health has deteriorated so much that we are now considered unhealthy enough to be considered as having a disability or living in a diseased state. And this is for the last 15 years of your life.

To get to the stage where a condition is deemed a disability or disease state, doesn’t happen overnight. That’s not the way disease works. For many diseases the incubation period is not measured in days, weeks, months and usually not in years either. For disease to take hold, your body would have been in a sub-disease state probably for 5-10 years or more. How often have you heard ‘I don’t understand it, he/ she was so healthy, then all of a sudden, they went downhill’. That’s what happens at the end stage, the progression of the disease is exponential. But the beginning stages are usually very slow and subtle, which is why they do not show up as symptoms or even in most regular medical checks.

It seems for all our advances in modern life in the last century, we’ve only seemed to have gained and extra 5-10 years of healthy life, and that’s probably due the fact that we haven’t had to contend with a World War (1, 2 and the 7 Year War) that our recent ancestors did.

So what to do?

Well, that’s the question isn’t it. What to do? As I’ve said in many of my HPC-UK articles, the general public’s source of scientific information is usually via today’s popular media. Unfortunately they are not very good at representing the state of our knowledge. If you rely on the TV or the newspapers, especially the red tops, to provide your information, you may want to seriously reconsider what you actually know. 

The current state of science, if adopted, could see a 30 year old body opening a lovely letter by the Queen (or King?) wishing them well in celebrating a century. That is, a Chronologically old person who is Biologically young.

But that situation is the capstone on the pyramid. For the capstone to be set in place, the foundations need to be strong, very strong.

How do we achieve this? First you need to identify the major risk factors for the most prevalent diseases. Once identified, you need to take steps to stop or reverse their progression, much easier to do when they are in the birthing stages.  So the time to begin an anti ageing lifestyle is now.

Sounds difficult? Not really. The biggest killer is still Circulatory disease, this combination accounts for about 33% of all deaths.  The second biggest cause of death is Cancer which comes in at 29%. Next is Respiratory disease which has a slightly lower percentage of 14%. All three of these disease states have very similar causes, so by addressing one aspect, you’ve reduced your chance of dying by 76% Not bad, huh?

What we need to do now is know how good, or bad, shape we are in and take steps to remedy the situation. What I’ll do in this series is give you a brief overview of some of the most important measures for health. These are taken from the HPC-UK anti-ageing program, where we measure different indices known as biomarkers of ageing and put together an individual protocol based on this and many other variables.  Once you know your score, you can work out your Biological age for that measure and compare it to your Chronological age. The further it is above your own age, the more important it is to focus on bringing down that measure.