Can Meditation Delay Aging?

by Brad and Nina 

Gaudi Ceiling by Brad Gibson

Since the early days of Yoga for Healthy Aging, we’ve been blogging about the research of Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who studies the effects of stress on cellular aging (see Stress, Telomeres and Aging). Dr. Blackburn is so convinced that chronic stress affects aging on a cellular level that she is studying the effects of meditation and yoga on aging, thinking that these practices might actually slow aging and lengthen life.

In particular, Dr. Blackburn has been studying the affects of meditation and yoga on telomere length. Throughout your life, your cells may reproduce many times to repair and strengthen their host organs, to grow or to fight disease, and the telomere at the end shrinks each time the cell divides and duplicates itself. A chemical called telomerase helps restore a portion of the telomere with each division, but after 10 to 50 divisions or so (the number varies by tissue type and health, and biologists still do not understand the system well), the telomere gets so short that the cell is no longer able to replicate. Because some cells or tissues in our body (skin, blood cells, etc.) continue to replicate and be replaced as we age, or to be repaired after injury, if the progenitor cells needed for these processes cannot replicate due to telomere shortening, this can contribute to the aging process and increase our susceptibility to disease.

Dr. Blackburn’s research has demonstrated that chronic stress actually accelerates telomere shortening and that anti-stress practices such as meditation and yoga can in turn slow the process by “boosting” telomeres. A recent BBC article Can Meditation Delay Aging?  gives a good overview of Dr. Blackburn’s current research. Here’s an excerpt that explains why meditation and yoga might boost telomeres.

Theories differ as to how meditation might boost telomeres and telomerase, but most likely it reduces stress. The practice involves slow, regular breathing, which may relax us physically by calming the fight-or-flight response. It probably has a psychological stress-busting effect too. Being able to step back from negative or stressful thoughts may allow us to realise that these are not necessarily accurate reflections of reality but passing, ephemeral events. It also helps us to appreciate the present instead of continually worrying about the past or planning for the future.

But while telomeres are still getting a lot of buzz these days, I for one know that this is only one of many theories of aging out there (see What is Aging, Anyway?). So I turned to Brad for his take on the article (and the issue of telomeres in general). 

—Nina

Overall, this a reasonable, well-written and—for the most part—balanced article. I think when it gets into how the established medical profession and scientists are reluctant to get into this area, it is largely correct. However, there is so much confusion and outright snake oil sales in the “anti aging” field right now that it’s no big mystery why people (and scientists) are cautious. In addition, it is important to keep in mind that the role of telomeres in aging is still very controversial. This statement late in the article is a bit problematic:

"Conventional medical tests give us our risk of particular conditions - high cholesterol warns of impending heart disease, for example, while high blood sugar predicts diabetes. Telomere length, by contrast, gives an overall reading of how healthy we are: our biological age. And although we already know that we should exercise, eat well and reduce stress, many of us fall short of these goals."

For one, the role of cholesterol levels is (surprise!) being hotly debated again. And some of the longstanding wisdom about what levels are good or bad—especially for women—may be wrong.  The idea that telomere length is a read-out of our “biological age” is simply not supportable by solid scientific evidence. It is telling us something, but it’s not exactly clear what that is precisely. There are some big efforts going on right now to identify new “biomarkers” of aging, and I'm under the impression that telomere length is no longer being considered as major player in these efforts.

—Brad

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook

Read More

Aging, Telomeres, and Yoga: New Study by Elizabeth Blackburn and Dean Ornish

by Baxter

A while back, we reported on an interesting potential marker in the body for aging of the cells connected to the genes called a telomere (see Stressed Mind, Stressed Cells and Science, Aging and Yoga). A telomere is like a tail on the end of DNA strands found in our cells, and an enzyme called telomerase influences the length and activity of the telomere. Studies done a few years ago by a Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn at UCSF in San Francisco began to show a connection between telomeres and cell longevity—the longer the telomere, the longer the cell life. Her work garnered her a Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Telomere Caps

Now Dr. Blackburn has teamed up with Dr. Dean Ornish to see what effect his life-style changes approach to prostate cancer has on telomeres and telomerase activity. Dr. Ornish has already shown that a combination of dietary changes (vegan diet with less than 10% fat per day), exercise in the form of walking for 30 minutes most days, and stress management tools that include regular yoga asana and breath work, mindfulness meditation and once a week group stress reduction sessions can reverse heart disease and diabetes, and can stabilize prostate cancer and stop its progression.

In their most recent study, published in Lancet Oncology (see Effect of comprehensive lifestyle changes on telomerase activity and telomere length in men with biopsy-proven low-risk prostate cancer: 5-year follow-up of a descriptive pilot study), the two researchers looked at how the lifestyle program impacted the cellular genetic level in regards to telomere length and enzyme activity. What they found was that the 10 men studied had longer telomeres in the short (as quickly as three months!) and long run, if they stuck to the program, and the 25 men who were controls had shorter telomeres. And they also looked at gene activity in their ten study subjects, and found that 500 genes were turned on, and all were beneficial, according to Ornish. 

Even though telomeres may be an indicator of longer cell life, and by extension, longer overall lifespan, this has not been definitively concluded, so more studies will need to be done, looking at much larger numbers of people. But the early evidence is promising, and even if the telomere/aging cell theory does not pan out, it seems evident that yoga, diet, exercise and stress management do have significantly positive impacts on health, disease progress or remission, and are therefore worth the effort. And as Dr. Ornish noted, his study participants found the lifestyle plan easy to follow, with 85-90% compliance, much better than most pharmaceutical based treatment plans. Why, you might ask? Well, has he says, it’s because it’s pleasant and comprehensive and “most people feel so much better they change their lifestyle.”

To read more, you can check out articles at ucsf.edu and today.com—among others—which reported these new findings.

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook 

Read More

Stress, Telomeres, and Aging

by Nina

In his next post, Brad will be writing about one of the several competing theories about aging: Nobel Prize winner Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn’s theory of the relationship between aging and telomeres (the protective caps at the ends of our chromosomes). Dr. Blackburn believes that telomere length is an indicator of the age and vitality of a cell, and that psychological stress actually ages cells, which can be seen when telomere length is measured.

We thought you might be interested in Dr. Blackburn’s work because she is so convinced about the effects of stress on cellular aging that she is studying the effects of meditation and yoga on telomeres. So for those of you who would like to learn a bit about her work before Brad’s post, here is a little background information. As a start, you can find a brief interview with Dr. Blackburn here. If you’ve got an hour or so, you can listen to her lecture on “Chromosome Ends and Diseases of Aging” here.

Gaudi Mosaic by Brad Gibson

Throughout your life, your cells may reproduce many times to repair and strengthen their host organs, to grow or to fight disease, and the telomere at the end shrinks each time the cell divides and duplicates itself. A chemical called telomerase helps restore a portion of the telomere with each division, but after 10 to 50 divisions or so (the number varies by tissue type and health, and biologists still do not understand the system well), the telomere gets so short that the cell is no longer able to replicate. Because some cells or tissues in our body (skin, blood cells, etc.) continue to replicate and be replaced as we age, or to be repaired after injury, if the progenitor cells needed for these processes cannot replicate due to telomere shortening, this can contribute to the aging process and increase our susceptibility to disease. See here for a short article on this.

For several years, Dr. Blackburn has been conducting research on the relationship between stress and telomere length. According to her, there is so much evidence that psychological stress actually ages cells that she and her colleagues have been studying the effects of mindful meditation on telomere length. See here for a full academic paper entitled “Can meditation slow the rate of cellular aging?” I've read that as a result of these studies, Dr. Blackburn has taken up meditation as regular practice.

To be continued....

Subscribe to YOGA FOR HEALTHY AGING by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook 

Read More