Telomeres : The Answer To Aging?

You may have seen recent articles, and or videos about telomeres.

Here is a video of Sierra Sciences CEO Bill Andrews, PhD, making a presentation about telomeres at the 2009 Longevity Summit.

He explains that telomeres are the very end of the DNA string in the chromosomes. DNA is a hundred million bases long. Telomeres are about 15,000 bases long when we are first conceived. As cells divide the telomeres get shorter. When we are born we have about 10,000 bases in our telomeres. When telomeres are around 5,000 bases we die of old age. (This is the theory.)

He starts off by saying that we can't do anything to stop telomeres from getting shorter as our cells divide. So there is a maximum limit of about 125 years to human life.

He also tells us that bad lifestyle choices, such as smoking, will make telomeres get shorter even faster. So this of course encourages us to live healthy lifestyles. So far so good.

However he assures us that there is no lifestyle changes that can keep telomeres long and healthy.

As he proceeds we find out that the telomeres in some cells do not get shorter. At first he says just reproductive cells have this property. But as the presentation goes on we find out that other cells also have this ability to live longer.

His job is to find drugs that will help cells keep long telomeres. He invisions finding drugs that will allow us to live much longer.

We next find out that no one really knows yet if keeping telomeres long will keep us from aging. Indeed there seems to be much more involved in aging than telomeres. In fact only humans, dogs, cats, and horses seem to have this telomere problem. No other animals age in this way.

Interestingly, cancer cells have this ability to keep long telomeres. If we take a drug to cause cells to be like cancer cells, is that a good thing?

It turns out that Bill Andrew's presentation is simply a plea for money to do more research, to make drugs to patent and sell.

A little more research on our part, and we find out that telomeres also stay healthy if we eat balanced amino acids from whole foods. This is a direct disagreement with Bill Andrew's statements. Even though, in his presentation he does make mention of groups of people who are known to live longer and have longer telomeres than those who don't live as long.

If you study these groups of people who live to be over 100 years old and still have very healthy active lifestyles, you find out that they don't take drugs, or even supplements, for the most part.

They do however eat lots of fresh veggies, fruits, and whole grains. They also get regular exercise (often strenuous), and have good social lives.

These kinds of presentations are good examples of how important it is to listen to what is being said, as well as what is not being said.

He said that eating well and exercising won't help, but all his years of research hasn't been about anything but drugs. He hasn't researched nutrition, or lifestyle.

This is a common mistake made by many many people. They assume that because people who eat processed foods and take drugs can't achieve optimum health, then it must be impossible to achieve optimum health unless we come up with some super drug that will solve all our problems.

He also encourages everyone to spend hundreds of dollars to have there telomere lengths analyzed. The only purpose I can see in that, since they don't really yet know what the real truth about telomeres and aging is, is to get you anxious to buy his drug that he will be making in the future, so you will put up money now to move the research along.

Unfortunately most of the articles out there, that talk about telomeres, are presentations designed to sell some supplement or drug like substance, or to give you false hopes to look forward to the miracle pill, that they will soon be making, to give you long life.

But a little common sense and level-headedness, along with an understanding of nature and natural foods made by our creator, helps us to know that by eating wholesome foods with complete proteins we are already way ahead of the game.

Specifically recommended foods that help with this include eggs, raw milk, and whole wheat.

So if you choose a healthy lifestyle and keep your telomeres long, can you live forever? Probably not. Remember that there is much more to aging than just telomeres.

But choosing a healthy lifestyle will help you to enjoy life much longer with fewer health concerns along the way.

Enjoy your day!
Coach G.

The Diet Solution Program Review

People have been asking me about a book or a program they can follow that will incorporate many of the healthy lifestyle elements that I teach here on this blog. Well, believe it or not, I finally found one that is pretty darn good. It is sold primarily as a weight loss program, but includes the sound principles needed to live a healthy lifestyle.

So, here is a review of The Diet Solution Program: The Program that Promises Fat Loss along with an incredible amount of Health and Vitality.

The Diet Solution Program promises a complete and comprehensive weight loss program that will not only help you lose body fat, but guarantees you increased energy, health and vitality all at the same time.

With so many weight loss programs out on the market and on the internet today, what makes this program any different than all the rest?

Before we get to the program, let's take a look at the expert behind this program. Isabel De Los Rios is a nutrition and exercise specialist with 10 years of experience helping clients reach their ideal weight and tackle conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and high cholesterol. Isabel has a very extensive educational background in nutrition and exercise physiology. Her personal experience with her own weight struggles and her mother’s severe diabetes led her search for the BEST nutrition information available today. The Diet Solution Program is a result of her 15 year study and research.

Unlike other so-called “health experts”, who are just following main stream nutrition programs, Isabel provides her readers with the truth: the facts most people have never taken the time to research, read and decipher.

Plus, Isabel has been a nutrition and exercise specialist for the past 10 years and has personally worked with hundreds of clients in her own private facility, overseeing successful weight loss programs. This hands on experience with real people solidified the facts and principles she had learned in books, journals and from other health professionals. The proof was really in the results of real people.

In fact, Isabel's articles are pretty radical, when it comes to her nutrition principles, which is why her approach works when main-stream nutrition fails. So if you are looking for the same old nutrition theories taught in every other book and program on the market today, this is not the program for you. Amazingly she agrees almost 100 percent with me.

Now one of the biggest questions about the program is simply, "What is The Diet Solution Program?" Well according to Isabel, it is the most comprehensive and detailed nutrition manual available on the market today. Not only does it teach you exactly what principles you need to follow to finally reach your ideal weight, it gives you the meal plans, shopping lists and recipes to do so. It does not push some extreme, unreasonable way to lose weight. It actually teaches you how you can make this healthy way of eating into a lifestyle. And if you have ever attempted to lose weight in the past, you know that the only way to maintain it is to make it a way of life. The best part about Isabel’s program is that this new way of life is not some torturous eating regimen. She really shows you that you can eat delicious food, combined the right way, to lose weight and maintain it.

One of the best side effects of the whole program is the increased health and vitality that every participant experiences. Decreases in blood sugar levels, lowered cholesterol, increased energy, elimination of digestive discomfort and cleared skin conditions are just some of the few benefits other people have already experienced.

Now realize that some effort from you will be required, but Isabel has really done all the hard work for you. Included in her program is:

• Step by step action steps telling you exactly how to put the principles in place
• Detailed daily meal plans that make everyday eating easy
• Shopping Lists to make food shopping a snap
• Delicious Recipes to make everyday meals tasty

The manual is comprehensive. Jam packed with incredible and valuable information. But you don’t need to wait to get through the whole thing before you can start. You can use Isabel’s Quick Start Guide to start the program ASAP. Some people have even just used the quick start guide and lost 10-15lbs in a little as 6 weeks.

The Diet Solution Program is not just another weight loss scheme or extreme diet. It is truly the only way to lose weight and enjoy a lifetime of health. The Diet Solution Program is perfect for people who have struggled with their weight their whole life and are sick and tired of programs that just don’t work long term. The DSP is also perfect for people who want to take control of their health and reverse health conditions like diabetes, high cholesterol and heart disease.

If you're in the slightest bit curious, I recommend you look closely at Isabel's program. I was very impressed with all of The Diet Solution Program meal plans, the bonuses, the guarantee, and Isabel's expertise. And it isn't a lot of money. Plus it is so much better than diet pills! And remember...

Isabel De Los Rios’s The Diet Solution Program is backed by a 90 day money back guarantee. And this is a real guarantee... if you are not completely satisfied, you will receive your money back, no "ifs," "ands," or "buts." So you really have nothing to lose.

Click here to check it all out.

Vitamin E : How To Get The Benefits

Did you know that over 50 years ago it was shown that vitamin E could help prevent heart disease?

It also can help with fertility in both men and women. It helps to mitigate the downsides of estrogen. That means that it can also help to prevent cancer, as well as keep cholesterol levels normal.

It has been found that Vitamin E is also good for the treatment of blood clots, phlebitis, hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes.

Vitamin E will even increase the availability of oxygen to the embryo in pregnant women.

It helps to decrease inflammation. It helps to heal leaky capillaries.

Excess clotting is known to be caused by too much estrogen, and also by a vitamin E deficiency.

Evidence indicates that Vitamin E prevents and cures fibrotic diseases, and it's a natural COX inhibitor.

In case you were wondering, fibrotic diseases include :
Cirrhosis (liver)
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (lungs)
CITA (Cronic Inflamation of Tunica Albugenia) *old peyronie's disorder
Endomyocardial fibrosis (heart)
Mediastinal fibrosis (soft tissue of the mediastinum)
Myelofibrosis (bone marrow)
Retroperitoneal fibrosis (soft tissue of the retroperitoneum)
Progressive massive fibrosis (lungs); a complication of coal workers' pneumoconiosis
Nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (skin)
Crohn's Disease (intestine)
Keloid (skin)
Old myocardial infarction (heart)
Scleroderma/systemic sclerosis (skin, lungs)

Vitamin E even helps to get rid of excess intracellular calcium. Remember talking about that the other day? (See HERE if you don't.)

So, if that's all true, why don't doctors push for people to use Vitamin E anymore? They used to.

Well, one reason is that it was cutting into drug profits.

So, we began to hear stories about the bad things that could happen if you supplement with Vitamin E.

They said it could cause congenital heart defects, and hemorrhagic stroke.

Fairly quickly doctors started to ignore vitamin E, and now and then there would be an article published about the "toxicity" of vitamin E.

Wow! That doesn't sound good! So what is really true?

Well, if you do a little more research you find out that indeed there are negative health consequences for using vitamin E supplements that are made synthetically. In fact it turns out that studies that have been done on vitamin E within the last couple of decades, mostly use synthetic vitamin E. It isn't even the same chemical composition as natural vitamin E. Unfortunately, most vitamin E supplements are made that way.

The key to getting the health benefits of vitamin E is not to take vitamin E supplements. Simply eat good wholesome natural foods that are naturally high in vitamin E.

When you eat whole foods, you not only get the vitamin E in the correct form, you also get all the co-factors that make it do it's job best in your body.

When I looked up to see what foods were naturally high in vitamin E, I wasn't particularly surprised to see that it included most of the foods that I generally encourage people to eat.

Here is the list of foods high in vitamin E:
Asparagus
Avocado
Eggs
Raw milk
Nuts
Seeds
Spinach
Whole grains (particularly wheat)

Vitamin E, when consumed in these forms, even helps to mitigate the damage caused by eating polyunsaturated oils.

Of course, I still suggest that you stop all consumption of corn, soy, cotton seed, and canola oils. Then the vitamin E you ingest won't have to be used to fight that junk, it can go toward making your body healthy.

If you would like to learn more about vitamin E, I suggest reading THIS.

To review the problems with polyunsaturated oils, go HERE.

To review the basics of health, go HERE.

For the overview of my health rules, go HERE.

Bone Health : Naturally

We have previously talked a little about osteoporosis, but I recently received a request for more information on bones and bone spurs. I do have more information about that.

You can read my previous article about osteoporosis HERE.

Let's talk a little about what causes "old bones" and/or bone spurs (calcium deposits).

The causes of these calcium deposits are actually two fold; too much calcium, and not enough calcium. In the first case the body has more calcium than it can handle, and it doesn't have the resources it needs to get rid of it, so it stores it. In the second case the body recognizes a shortage and so it grabs on to any calcium it can find to store it in case of emergency calcium need.

Now that would make you think that you have to very carefully balance your calcium intake. But let's get a little deeper.

Every cell of your body actually uses calcium. The cell can take calcium in when it needs it, and when it is finished with it, it pumps it back out. This is sometimes called a "calcium pump". The calcium pump is actually a special protein, also know as an enzyme.

As the body "ages" (gets out of balance) these pumps can stop working, or at least lose some of their capacity to pump. So calcium will start to build up in the tissue. This can cause all kinds of stiffness and pain.

The body prefers to store calcium in the bones. That would be a good thing. But when it doesn't have the resources it needs to build bone, or it can't get the calcium out of the cells where it doesn't belong, it can't build the bone. And it will take what calcium is left in the bones to balance critical processes that need calcium.

If the body is healthy and has all the resources it needs, it will put calcium into the bones until they are very strong and healthy and will then dump any extra calcium out of the body.

So, the question is, if you are having one of these problems, how do you get the body to correct this and start pulling the excess calcium out of the soft tissue and putting it into the bones?

Remember that everything in the body requires balance. Balance comes from whole foods. Also remember that the body cannot move anything around and through the body without water. And, of course, to move the water and other stuff around, you have to have movement of the muscles and skeleton. Exercise is imperative. In fact the joints that are the stiffest probably need the exercise the most.

Now let's go back and think about those calcium pumps for a minute. If your pumps are not working as well as the should be, then you probably aren't getting the enzymes you need.

Remember that enzymes are special proteins. Proteins are made from amino acids. We must take in amino acids (in a balanced way) to allow our bodies to make the proteins (and enzymes) that it needs.

If you are having this type of problem, I highly suggest that you try to get good proteins with each meal every day. Eggs are probably the best source of these balanced amino acids. Eat plenty of eggs. You could even have some with each meal if you wanted to. Some people will warn you against eating too many eggs, but they have simply read the wrong reports. That is very old outdated information that somehow keeps getting passed around.

Of course, moderation in all things is also prudent. You can run into problems if you eat more than 20 eggs a day. Your food intake needs to also include lots of green leafy vegetables. These will help very much in getting the good resources (minerals, enzymes, etc.) that you need to balance all of the body processes.

Other excellent sources of protein are raw milk, grass fed lean beef, and whole wheat. Please note the adjectives in that last senctence. Milk that isn't raw, isn't good. Beef that isn't grass fed, is generally full of lots of junk that isn't good for the human body. Processed wheat products (even if labeled "whole wheat") are not good for the human body. When I say whole wheat, I mean you bought wheat in grain form, and then ground and/or soaked it yourself.

Here is an interesting tidbit. Drinking apple cider vinegar can change the pH of the body because it helps to pump out the extra calcium out of it's hiding places. So if you feel that you are having a problem with calcium getting stored in the wrong places, a drink of warm water with a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar may help. When I do that, I add a spoon of raw honey to the drink as well. This makes it more palatable as well as adding more good enzymes.

If you are in need, you can safely have a drink like that three or four times a day.

Of course you want the whole body balanced, so eat plenty of all good wholesome foods. In fact if you are exercising and drinking plenty of liquids, you can eat as much as you can of all good wholesome foods (be sure and get a variety) and you won't gain any weight (unless you need to gain weight).

So that's about it for today. Let me know if there are further questions.

Have a great day, with a healthy lifestyle!

Coach G.