To Your Health
By James N. Dillard, M.D.
(01/28/2010) Okay, so I was wrong, sort of. Last week I told you there was no fountain of youth (from hormone replacement therapy). And three weeks ago I told you that most trumped-up medical breakthroughs are a bunch of hot air. But I introduced you to the idea that you could turn off some dangerous parts of your genetic makeup (epigenetics), such as the genes that contribute to causing cancer and diabetes, by how you live your life.
This week’s story and these previous columns are all related, and it turns out that there actually is a bit of a fountain of youth, or as close as we can get to it right now in 2010. No, this is not from the anti-aging wackos who want to sell you tons of products — this is real science. Stick with me and I’ll put it all together for you. There are some simple, practical lessons here.
Your body is made up of individual cells that are ruled by DNA. It’s the blueprint for everything that goes on in the cell, but the DNA has to be read by the cell to know what to do inside it.
The vast majority of the DNA in a healthy cell is not read, particularly the genes that say “Turn into cancer!” (oncogenes). The DNA is kept healthy and intact in part by big tag ends called telomeres, which look like the wrapped plastic tips of a shoe lace. The longer the telomeres, the healthier the DNA, the healthier you are, and, theoretically, the longer you live.
The Nobel Prize in Medicine was given out in October for work on these principles. In the Jan. 20 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, Ramin Farzaneh-Far and colleagues reported on studying telomere length for five years in 608 men who had already had heart attacks and had undergone coronary artery bypass grafting. They found that the men who had higher levels of the healthy omega-3 fatty acids in their white cells had significantly longer telomeres than those who had lower levels of omega-3s.
Dr. Farzaneh-Far, who is a clinical cardiologist and assistant professor at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine, said, “What we’re demonstrating is a potentially new link between omega-3 fatty acids and the aging process.” The study did not use the vegetable sources of omega-3, such as flaxseed and walnuts, but rather focused only on deep-water fish sources, including omega-3 capsules.
I’ve been writing about the health benefits of the omega-3 fats since I started writing for The Star in March. Just 15 years ago, they were considered health food store quackery. Now they are endorsed by the American Heart Association. With this latest round of research, we are coming to understand that quelling low-grade inflammation with the omega-3 oils may give more longevity to our cells and protect our hearts (“Too Hot to Handle” column in the March 19 Star).
This powerful anti-inflammatory effect of the omega-3 fatty acids was just confirmed by a study of very sick people in the Jan. 19 issue of Critical Care. Twenty-three people who were critically ill with a life-threatening condition called sepsis, an overreaction to bacterial blood infection, were given either omega-3 fats or soybean oil in their food. Four people died in each group, but the omega-3 group got out of the hospital in an average of 28 days, whereas the soybean oil group got out in 82 days. The fish oil group showed evidence of less inflammation throughout the recovery.
What about my column three weeks ago that mentioned the epigenetics of undereating without malnutrition to turn off dangerous genes? Well, it turns out that this lifestyle approach leads to longer telomeres as well. There are many messenger proteins that surround the DNA, and they stimulate certain parts to be read and other parts to stay dormant. Your diet and lifestyle can have a significant effect on these control mechanisms.
Jorn Dyerberg, a Danish scientist, discovered high levels of the omega-3 fatty acids in the blood of Inuits in Greenland. Despite their extremely high-fat diets, they had one-tenth the rate of heart disease of industrialized people. Dr. Dyerberg published his findings in 1976, and there has been an avalanche of positive research ever since.
The anti-aging scammers want you to buy lots of pills and juices that are supposed to keep you young. Forget about it. There’s absolutely no good science for most of that stuff.
More ways will be discovered to keep your telomeres from shortening too fast, and you can bet I’ll tell you about them. In the meantime, keep your excess calories to a minimum, exercise daily, get plenty of omega-3s, and don’t bother fishing around for phony youth potions.
Questions can be directed to Dr. James N. Dillard at jdillard@ehstar.com.