Telomere Length and Life Expectancy
As many of you likely saw yesterday, the airwaves in Europe, the U.S., and likely around the world were abuzz with the dramatic announcement coming out of Spain about “The New Test That Tells You How Long You’ll Live!”
There are ways to maintain, even increase, your Telomere length, and you are out there doing it! To your good health, with longer Telomeres!
That ‘new test,’ of course, is the measure of Telomere Lengths, not so new, actually, but the announcement described the real breakthrough that Dr. Maria Blasco’s lab and new Telomere measurement company, Life Length, SL, in Spain, has made to measure the shortest telomeres, which as my readers know, is really the critical measure, as opposed to the more commonly measured ‘average’ telomere length.
But as I scanned the many TV and press reports yesterday, while some reports were quite positive and optimistic about the news, others frankly missed the mark, essentially giving the [untrue] message: “Why should I have my Telomeres measured, since there’s nothing I can do to affect or improve my Telomere length anyway? My [Telomere] fate and lifespan are sealed…” As the readers of my blog, and of our new book “The Immortality Edge” well know, there are in fact many proven actions that can not only slow down the rate of telomere shortening (thus slowing down one’s aging process), but also to re-lengthen telomeres (with the goal of actual age reversal.)
The media focused on scare tactics like “Do you really wanna know when you will die?” and “Why bother knowing, after all, you were BORN with telomeres of a certain length and nuthin’ you can do…” You get the picture.
Much of the dialogue and ‘controversy’ in some circles at least, recently, in the field of telomeres revolves around the question: “OK, if short telomeres are ‘bad’, will it really help me if I can lengthen my telomeres?” There is a wealth of science, from many of the leading Telomere biologists, supporting a “yes” answer to that question.
But the other vitally important point that is missed with this question, and for which I know of no controversy among the scientific and medical experts, is that: there are many ways, and absolute benefit, to slowing the rate of telomere shortening and telomere loss–essentially slowing down one’s rate of aging– through the targeted actions detailed in the book, including, especially: exercise, multiple stress management techniques like yoga, meditation, even deep breathing, nutrition, and targeted nutritional supplementation.
As Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn has stated, “Correct telomere maintenance is critical.” And as you, my readers know, many of those news reports yesterday were indeed wrong: there are ways to maintain, even increase, your Telomere length, and you are out there doing it! To your good health, with longer Telomeres!
by 
Greta Blackburn is an actress, fitness magazine editor and Founder/Director of Greta Blackburn’s FITCAMPS, which have taken place for over 20 years in locations ranging from Malibu, Maui, and Mexico to Las Vegas and served as training symposiums for fitness professionals and other interested men and women from all over the world. Today the focus at Fitcamp is making 100 the new 50. In 2011 Greta co-authored, “The Immortality Edge” with Michael Fossel, MD, PhD. (author of the pivotal 1997 tome “Reversing Human Aging”) and Dr. Woynarowski with research and solutions based programs based on the emerging field of Telomere Biology.
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