HPC-UK Top Tips for Fat Loss. Tip No.2 - Stabilise Your Insulin

‘Dieting’, skipping meals, low/ no-fat foods, snacking on bars instead of eating, and the sundry other usual methods of the weight loss industry, all trigger a disruption in your insulin metabolism.

Simplified, all of the above methods destabilise your insulin. When you do eat, you get a big insulin burst. Insulin is a storage hormone. It causes your body to store everything. Not only do you store any extra food, but your liver converts all the excess insulin into triglycerides – fat, - and stores that too. So you can cut calories by skipping meals, yet still increase your bodyfat. Keeping a stable balance between the storage action of insulin and the catabolic action of its opposing hormone glucagon is crucial for being lean.

Aim for insulin stability and insulin efficiency. It’s the main way to affect your fat loss ability.

First, eat five to six small meals per day, each containing some low-glycemic carbohydrates, good quality protein and essential fats. HPC-UK clients are advised to eat every three or so hours using a schedule such as 7 am, 10 am, 1 pm, 4 pm, 7 pm, and 10 pm. They never suffer low blood sugar. Nor do they suffer insulin bursts. Their blood shows a stable balance between insulin and its catabolic partner, glucagon.

As the old saying goes ‘The continuous drip polishes the stone.’

HPC-UK Top Tips for Fat Loss; Tip No.1 - Never Put Your Body Into Fat-Defensive Mode

A large majority of people fail to change their bodyfat permanently because, in their impatience to lose fat, they force the body to defend its habitual level of fat. As I’ve shown in previous articles after a few attempts they admit defeat, blame their parents and console themselves with cake. Obviously, people do differ in their inherited tendencies to accumulate fat. But only a very small percentage can blame their level of bodyfat on their genes, in all honesty this isn’t you. We know now that neither the number of fat cells you carry, nor their size, is genetically fixed. For most of us, bodyfat is a reflection of what we eat and what we do.

Once you trigger fat defense with the usual methods, such as skipping meals or reducing calories, eating really odd diets, or special low-calorie packaged meals, you lose the ability to permanently change your bodyfat. There is no way your body can make the required changes because your body is on high alert fat defense all the time. Leave the latest diet fads for the numpties.

If you have been fooled into fad dieting, and have used any of its many different forms for more than six months, you have put your body in terrible shape to lose fat and maintain the loss. Don’t worry though, follow the HPC-UK Tips for Fat Loss, and within one year you will be able to control your bodyfat for life

Remember, ‘Haste Makes Waist’.

Jamie’s Not So Revolutionary, Albeit Infinitely Worthy, Food Revolution

There has been a bit of a brouhaha in the past week regarding the Governments plans to tackle the Obesity bomb that has just begun to explode. I am at a loss for words to begin to explain the stupidity of the planned ‘fat tax’, so I won’t do that here. What I am going to comment on is the equally ‘imbecilic’ advice from Andrew Lansley to ‘Eat Less, Move More’, and the more deserving advice from Jamie Oliver to ‘Eat Differently’.

‘Eat Less, Move More’ has been an oft trotted out phrase by generally good intentioned by woefully ignorant people. This phrase is based on the concept of energy balance, which as I’ve shown has used Calories as a basis for measurement for various reasons, from simplicity to outright fraud. We’ll look at the nutrition side of things here, and possibly return to the physical exercise part in a later piece.

Let’s start with a simple premise:

I can design a program where I can increase your calorific intake by 50% and you will still lose weight (by this I’m referring to bodyfat).

I can also design a diet where I reduce your calorific intake by 50% and cause you to end up fatter.

So in the first case a person can go from eating 2000 Kcal to eating 3000 Kcal per day and actually slim down. In the second case the same person could go from eating 2000 Kcal to eating 1000 Kcal per day and get fatter.

How is this possible when it goes completely against the logic of energy balance? Well it does and it doesn’t. You have to remember that food is not just a container for energy, but is also a chemical signal. These chemical signals can have profound effects on the way the body functions.

Let’s use two isocaloric diets (same amount of Calories in each) of 2000Kcal as an example to explain how this works. This amount of Kcal’s is, according to the authority, the amount required for a 10st 7lb (147lb/ 67Kg) female. Let’s assume she has a fairly reasonable level of bodyfat of 18%.

In the first diet let’s use the Government recommendations for macronutrients (Carbohydrate, Protein and Fat) which are 50:15:35, providing 250g of Carbohydrate, 75g of Protein and 78g of fat.

In the second diet let’s change the ratios to 33:30:37, providing 165g Carbohydrate, 150g of protein and 82g of fat.

According to the Calorie based energy balance argument both diets should maintain weight in the female example. However, what you’ll find is the second diet will cause a reduction in weight, even though the second diet is slightly higher in fat and the total Calories haven’t changed. This is due to the ‘Thermic Effect of Food’ (TEF). Simply put, to digest and metabolise food requires energy, and some foods require more than others.

By increasing Protein and decreasing Carbohydrate, we have to increase metabolism in order to process the nutrient. The TEF can account for 5-15% of your daily energy output depending on what you eat. 15% of a 2000 Kcal diet is 300 Kcal or 2,100 Kcal extra expended per week, without having to raise a pinky.

The above could account for a fat loss of about 1/2lb per week simply by altering your ratios. However, it doesn’t stop there, as Jamie Oliver alluded to; choosing the right food is more important than simply the Calorie content, let’s briefly explore this part.

Food doesn’t just provide energy; it also influences many processes in the body, including hormones. As anyone who has taken the contraceptive pill or a course of corticosteroids will attest, hormones can very quickly affect your level of bodyfat.

I’ve shown previously that depending on your selection of carbohydrates, your body will respond in either a favourable manner or go completely in the opposite direction.  In very simply terms, choosing lower Glycemic Index carbohydrates over Higher Glycemic Index will maintain low and stable insulin levels, both which support fat loss and maintenance of muscle. Higher glycemic carbohydrates (except at very specific times) will do the opposite and influence the body to create bodyfat and actually decrease muscle, by taking insulin too high and causing a see-saw effect in levels.

So even if you were using an undesirable macronutrient ratio, you can create an environment for fat gain or fat loss simply by selecting the right carbohydrate.

I won’t go into protein as this can get quite complicated, and I was at risk of boring you 758 words ago, so without tempting fate and hoping you’re still with me, let’s finish up with fats. This section also goes part way to explaining why a ‘Fat Tax’ is ridiculously myopic.

Fats are a perennial target when nutrition is discussed, usually for the wrong reasons. Choosing the right fats will make or break a body. Period.

Current recommendations are to increase monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats and to reduce saturated fats. Great advice on the surface, but again it’s not this simple. Leaving out monounsaturated fats as they are, not completely, but relatively benign, we’ll locate our gaze on the other two main classes.

For close to 2-3 decades polyunsaturated fats have been promoted as the hero in the fat world, and for good reason. Both Omega 3 and 6 are essential to the body as we cannot make these fats internally as we can with many others. Being essential they have profound effects on the way the body functions, such as, but in no way limited to, levels of haemoglobin and Insulin metabolism, and this is starting to show in the health of the population.

Omega 6 is fairly easy to get in the diet, and the promotion of grain based foods as a basis for a healthy diet has made this even more the case. Omega 3 is not found so readily and even when it is found it spoils very easily, so getting enough in the diet is a lot harder.

This imbalance and its effect on the physiology of the body is one of the reasons for the continuing levels of, amongst many others, Cardio-vascular disease, Cancer and the alarming levels of obesity we are witnessing. If you’ve been reading my work, you’ll have seen the current theory that chronic inflammation is intrinsically linked not only to the above diseases but very much a central player in the ability to control body fat.

What about saturated fats, the much hated, demonised child of the fat family. Even here, it’s not that simple. There are many saturated fats, which all have different effects on the body. Stearic acid, the major saturated fatty acid found in beef, doesn’t raise LDL cholesterol like other saturated fats, but it does promote creation of bodyfat. Other saturated fats such as Lauric acid found in Coconuts do not raise bodyfat. It also raises HDL cholesterol, but also raises LDL cholesterol. So it’s not as easy as saying all saturated fats are bad, as they can have beneficial effects, of which most people are unaware. So the inclusion of saturated fat in the diet is not only warranted it’s actually desirable.

So where does that leave us? Well, if we took Andrew Lansley’s advice and simply ate less, we’d in all likelihood end up both fatter and in much poorer health. If we take Jamie Oliver’s advice to eat differently and more knowledgably, we’d have a vastly healthier nation, and this would be reflected by our sleek physiques.

Demolition Man

In the previous article we looked very briefly at antioxidants and how uncontrolled oxidation creates excess free radicals. I suggested that in order to maintain a long lived healthy body and mind, we need to balance this process.

Most commentators on health in the general media would have you believe that free radicals are fiendish Gremlins that wreak havoc upon the body that should be entirely eliminated. It’s also been suggested that the fact that the body seems to naturally produce free radicals as a natural component of energy processing is an inherent flaw in the design of the Human body. Pish!!!

Excess free radicals will damage the body there is no doubt, we looked at the process by which this happens. However, far from an undesirable element, the body also uses free radicals in a huge array of processes, one notable function being immunity. Without free radicals, you would be prey to every passing virus, bacteria, microbe or sundry other wee beasties. Much like Special Force Units in the military, the fittest members of a population are recruited to execute specialised manoeuvres that the majority of the population neither have the skills or the necessary partitioned enmity that is demanded to have the required devastating effect. Or more succinctly put by John Spartan in Demolition Man ‘Send a Maniac to catch a Maniac’.

Ever wondered why most infections begin with a sore throat. The throat is one of the most accessible points of entry into the body (it’s actually still outside of the body, but I digress), where the aforementioned viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, microbes, chemicals etc. have the best chance of mounting an invasion. Upon detection of an unwanted invader, the body immediately contacts specialised armed forces called lymphocytes. This response is known as the lymphocyte proliferative response which is part of cell mediated immunity. This initial response and the subsequent battle for ground ‘is’ your sore throat.

The lymphocytes are divided into different components called T-Cells, B-Cells and Natural Killer Cells and much like the Armed Forces divisions of Army, Navy and Air force, each adheres to a specific remit. Within each division are sub-divisions, much like the Marine infantry within the Navy, with an even more specialised role within an already specialised unit.

Generally, foreign elements are tackled by Natural Killer Cells, which act as sentry guards. Natural Killer Cells do not need direction from the immune system as they auto-regulate their activity.  Natural Killers, on a daily basis destroy viruses and tumors before they can take hold and multiply. However, because of their fairly indiscriminate and very potent nature, the body keeps Natural Killers on a pretty short leash.

During this initial stand-off both the invading elements and the Natural Killer Cells create a substantial amount of collateral damage to normal body cells. Damaged cells, in response, raise a red flag (chemical signals such as prostaglandins and leukotrines) to alert the immune system that ‘it’s on’.

The Immune system then deploys another group of lymphocytes that are of a more discerning constitution. Although they are more selective in targeting, the collateral damage is even more severe.

Usually the first team to turn up at the battlefield are class of Phagocytes called Neutrophils. Neutrophils upon identifying an invader, attack by engulfing them. Having ingested the invader the Neutrophil essentially takes a huge breath, taking in 50 times the amount of Oxygen. This results in what is known as an ‘Oxidative burst’ within the Neutrophil, destroying the ingested foreign element by enlisting free radicals. The Neutrophil can perform this action about 20-30 times before the oxidative damage accumulates and damages the Neutrophil itself. At this point of no return, the Neutrophil detonates like a bomb, causing massive fallout from the oxidative contents and the free radicals that have been generated.

This may seem like a flaw in design of the immune system. Not at all, it’s genius, you just need to look at it from the right angle. The shrapnel emitted from the explosion hits, and damages, everything, both normal tissue and invading elements alike. This fallout weakens the invaders, softening them up for the killer blow delivered by your immune cells. To prevent the body from being overly damaged by the friendly fire, your cells require appropriate levels of antioxidants to shield themselves.

This is only the beginning stages of immune response, the later stages recruit various other cells such as Monocytes, T-cells as the battle becomes a lot more targeted via Humoral Immunity. However, even this brief skim over oxidation, free radicals and immunity demonstrates the delicate balance we need to maintain in order to allow oxidation to occur for beneficial reasons and having sufficient antioxidant armour to protect ourselves from rogue soldiers.

in pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello

As I’m sure, dear reader, you would have noticed, my articles are not stand alone pieces, but seem to weave a web of interconnecting strands, each supporting one another. This is not by design, well not mine anyway. This is just the way the Universe is, whether it developed this property via an emergent process or an intelligent hand reached in and laid out the steps for a divine plan, we don’t know for sure. All we can tell from our limited perspective is that we’re here (maybe?) and ‘everything links’.

Luckily this Universal interconnection makes my focus here easier, as I can…ummm…I don’t like the phrase ‘kill two birds with one stone’, so I’ll use ‘feed two birds with one scone’.

The previous few articles have focused on telomeres and their significant role in ageing and disease. In this article I’m going to begin to show you how to limit the oxidative stress that causes Telomere shortening. Bear in mind, that by ‘feeding’ the Telomere ‘bird’, you’ll also be ‘feeding’ a whole flock of ‘birds’. We’ll look at these in individual articles; here we will lay a firm foundation so that our subsequent building of knowledge is robust.

In the last article we discovered that uncontrolled or excessive oxidation was the primary factor in ageing. In order to control oxidation and help reset the balance we need a way to restrain this vital but potentially deleterious process. This is where antioxidants step up to the plate and hit a home run.

As I stated in the last article, left to run wild free radicals would kill you with rabid fervor. The reason this isn’t a commonplace sight is that our body’s produce endogenous antioxidants. The primary endogenous antioxidants are Glutathione, Superoxide Dismutase and Catalase. These antioxidants neutralise the free radicals by donating or receiving an electron. Astute readers remembering the last article would surmise that this would turn the antioxidant into a free radical itself. You would be spot on, however, the free radicals produced from this reaction are of a less damaging form, and they are subsequently neutralised by other antioxidants. This chain continues until the by-products are relatively harmless carbon dioxide and water.

Endogenous antioxidants do a great job in reducing your oxidative burden, and would probably be all we need if we lived in a world specifically designed for Humans. Despite many peoples delusion that this is indeed the case (Sorry ‘Snowflake’, despite what Mummy and Daddy told you, you are neither innately special nor the centre of the Universe), the world is indeed a dangerous environment, and in some ways getting more hazardous due to the arrogant machinations of man.

Many factors affect your oxidative status, such as your level of bodyweight, or the amount of physical activity you perform, and increasingly the amount of environmental pollution to which you are exposed. These factors combine to overburden our inbuilt defences leaving us prey to not only oxidative damage, but due to the interrelationship between oxidation and our immunity, a whole host of pathogens, viruses and bacteria.

In this light, we can see that our endogenous antioxidants are not sufficient to protect us from a myriad of perils. Step up to the plate ‘Star Batter’ number two; Nutrient antioxidants. You may have heard of one or two of these, such as Vitamin C or Zinc, and also probably seen the popular media or commerce pushing singular antioxidants as panacea’s of health. If only it was that simple. Never, ever, take single nutrients, especially in large doses.

First, as we saw above, by neutralising free radicals, antioxidants themselves become free radicals, which also need to be neutralised. Instead of reducing oxidation, single antioxidants increase free radical levels.

Second, free radicals come in all shapes and sizes, each individual type of free radical is best neutralised by a particular antioxidant, which is then disarmed by it’s own particular chain of antioxidant reactions.

These two factors alone demonstrate the need for a wide-spectrum antioxidant mix, so that all bases are covered. Then there’s the wrinkle that certain antioxidants can only work in particular structures in your body. It’s no good taking a particular antioxidant that in a lab has been shown to neutralise a particular free radical strongly, if it can’t access the part of your body where that free radical exists.

It’s a complicated lot, but the research has been accruing for well over half a century now, so we are getting closer to a complete picture. For now the most pertinent advice I can provide to reduce your oxidative burden is the following:

- Don’t smoke or associate with smokers.

- Eat a wide variety of vegetables and fruit.

- Eat high quality protein every meal

- Eat a diet high in Essential Fatty Acids and low in partially hydrogenated- and trans-fats

- Exercise a minimum of 30 minutes per day including resistance exercise

- Eat a low-sugar diet

- Keep bodyfat below 15% for males, 20% for females.

- Eat a low-acid diet.

- Eat a minimum of 30-40 grams of fiber daily.

- Leave high stress situations. Be a proper Brit’ ‘Keep calm and carry on’.

As we continue this series on ageing and disease prevention, we will look at the particular antioxidants that are most beneficial for each individual condition. Bear in mind, as suggested at the beginning of this article, there is considerable overlap. So, it’s not the arduous task it seems to protect yourself against the major degenerative diseases plaguing Humanity at present, it’s merely a case of selecting the right recipe for your scone.

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.