⏳ Is it possible to start looking younger and turn back the biological clock?
Each cell contains 46 strands of DNA — chromosomes. At their ends there are telomeres, protective "caps" that protect DNA from wear. With each cell division, telomeres shorten, and when they disappear completely, the cell dies. Their length can be used to estimate a person's age.
Smoking accelerates telomere shortening three times. Nutrition also affects: fruits, vegetables, and antioxidants help telomeres, while processed grains, sweet drinks, meat (including poultry, fish), and dairy products shorten them.
Scientists discovered the enzyme telomerase, which builds telomeres, in the roots of the 4,800-year-old Methuselah pine. Dean Ornish and Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn found that a three-month diet of whole plant foods together with other lifestyle changes significantly increases telomerase activity. In a five-year study, in the group that switched to a healthy lifestyle, telomeres not only did not shorten but became longer than at the beginning.
Telomere lengthening was not associated with sports or weight loss: calorie restriction and intensive training did not increase their length. What matters is the quality of food, not its quantity. Scientists warned that increased telomerase activity could theoretically increase the risk of cancer, but Ornish's studies showed that such a diet is capable of slowing and reversing the development of diseases, including cancer.
"Perhaps death from old age does not exist. In one study, more than 42 thousand autopsies of centenarians — people over a hundred years old — were conducted. According to the data obtained, all of them died from one disease or another. Although before death they were healthy, even according to the doctors who observed them, no one "died of old age." Until recently, advanced age was considered a disease in itself, but people do not die as a result of maturity. They die from disease, mainly from heart attack" - Michael Greger.
📝 Conclusion
From all of the above it follows — old age and death are not laid down by nature but are a process of destruction of the body as a result of diseases and other external factors. Even the old age of cells overwritten by telomeres can be reversed if we return to nature on whole plant nutrition, and also cleanse our body of slugs and toxins, as well as parasites, bacteria, and fungi.
Source: 📚 "How Not to Die: Food in the Fight for Life" - Michael Greger