Small positive lifestyle changes made in midlife predict longevity | Elissa Epel
Get the full length version of this episode as a podcast.
This episode will make a great companion for a long drive.
The BDNF Protocol Guide
An essential checklist for cognitive longevity — filled with specific exercise, heat stress, and omega-3 protocols for boosting BDNF. Enter your email, and we'll deliver it straight to your inbox.
Living longer and healthier doesn't require extreme behaviors. Eating right, moving more, and managing stress are just a few of the habits, especially in midlife, that predict telomere length. In this clip, Dr. Elissa Epel describes the "low hanging fruit" – small, healthy lifestyle behaviors – that can have positive effects on telomere length and lifespan.
Elissa: It's a whole formula. So it's not one thing. Like, the levers that control aging are the things that we know about but we easily forget. So we often hear, you know, about the lifestyle things. So activity, nutrition, stress. So those are really important to manage well, and they add up over time. So like a healthy lifestyle, not extreme but just healthy, in midlife predicts longer telomeres, predicts longevity decades later.
So we don't need to be extreme about this. We just need to really notice the toxic things we're doing. You know, like smoking, and sitting too much, and you know, leaving stress unchecked, and just having years and years of feeling vigilant and not getting enough sleep. So there's a lot of low hanging fruit that we know about.
Distinctive structures comprised of short, repetitive sequences of DNA located on the ends of chromosomes. Telomeres form a protective “cap” – a sort of disposable buffer that gradually shortens with age – that prevents chromosomes from losing genes or sticking to other chromosomes during cell division. When the telomeres on a cell’s chromosomes get too short, the chromosome reaches a “critical length,” and the cell stops dividing (senescence) or dies (apoptosis). Telomeres are replenished by the enzyme telomerase, a reverse transcriptase.
Member only extras:
Learn more about the advantages of a premium membership by clicking below.
Hear new content from Rhonda on The Aliquot, our member's only podcast
Listen in on our regularly curated interview segments called "Aliquots" released every week on our premium podcast The Aliquot. Aliquots come in two flavors: features and mashups.
- Hours of deep dive on topics like fasting, sauna, child development surfaced from our enormous collection of members-only Q&A episodes.
- Important conversational highlights from our interviews with extra commentary and value. Short but salient.
Telomeres News
- Aerobic exercise (120 minutes per week) significantly lengthened telomeres, a biomarker for healthy aging, in white blood cells after 24 weeks.
- Coal plant emissions may be damaging infant DNA. Babies born during a coal plant’s operation in China had shorter telomeres.
- High physical activity levels were associated with delayed biological aging by 9 years as measured by telomere length.
- Air pollution linked to shorter telomeres, a marker for health & aging, in adolescents in a dose-dependent manner.
- High levels of exercise, equal to 30-40 minutes of jogging per day 5 days per week, linked to nine years of less aging at the cellular level.
