Our bodies have exquisite mechanisms for sampling the environment and for sensing the levels of nutrients—amino acids, sugars, and fatty acids. From moment to moment, they modify a myriad of chemical reactions that trigger either autophagy—the process of cellular recycling and cleanup—or protein synthesis—making new proteins and parts. But how do our bodies know what to do?
We have four key nutrient-sensing systems that work together, with overlapping redundancies designed to beautifully protect us from disease and abnormal aging: insulin and insulin signaling, mTOR, AMPK, and sirtuins. Most of the dietary and lifestyle strategies that prevent disease, promote health, and extend life work through these nutrient-sensing systems.
One of the keys to optimizing these systems is to give your body a break from the constant influx of calories on a regular basis through fasting—thus activating autophagy. In addition, it’s important to ensure a high-quality nutrient intake that is low in sugar and starch, high in good fats and phytochemical-rich vegetables and fruit, and high in quality protein; this activates protein synthesis. Regular exercise also activates autophagy.
Hallmark 2: DNA Damage and Mutations
Damage to our DNA is another hallmark of aging. Each day our DNA gets up to 100,000 little hits. The accumulation of these insults accelerates aging. Thankfully, we have built-in repair systems that seek out damaged DNA and fix it. But even if 99 percent of damage is reversed, the remaining 1 percent accumulates over our lifetime.
Our cells also divide, and that means re-creating the DNA blueprint in each cell. Over your lifetime, your DNA produces 10 quadrillion copies of itself through cell division. Sometimes there are glitches in the copy machine, and our DNA blueprint is reproduced with these glitches.
Hallmark 3: Telomere Shortening
Our telomeres, the little caps at the end of our chromosomes, shorten as we age. Eventually, they can’t hold the tightly protected DNA double helix to prevent it from unraveling. Each time cells replicate, the caps are removed so the DNA can be read, but the telomere shortens a little bit until the cell stops dividing or commits programmed cell death (also known as apoptosis). This is a normal consequence of cell division. The longer our telomeres, the more years of healthy DNA replication we have. The shorter they are, the shorter our life. Also, sometimes the cells don’t die but turn into zombie cells (see Hallmark 6 in next week’s newsletter), spewing out inflammatory compounds that accelerate aging.
The good news is that we have tremendous influence over our telomeres. The usual lifestyle transgressions shorten them—our toxic, processed diet, sugar, environmental toxins, sedentary lifestyle, and psychological stress. Shorter telomeres are linked to all the problems of aging and increase the risk of not just gray hair, but heart disease, cancer, immune dysfunction, and more. A whole-foods, phytonutrient-rich diet, exercise, meditation, sleep, love, and even certain multivitamins all lengthen the telomere.
Hallmark 4: Damaged Proteins
DNA codes for proteins. In turn, these proteins regulate everything in your body. Your organs, tissues, and cells are all made from proteins, as are your cellular messenger molecules like hormones, peptides, immune molecules, and neurotransmitters. Proteins also form your information superhighway, facilitating trillions of chemical signals and reactions each second.
Many messenger proteins that contain the instructions for life are short-lived. And they can be damaged by all the same insults that damage DNA. When those proteins are damaged, they don’t work.
Thankfully autophagy also works to take care of damaged proteins. It’s a brilliant system, yet most of us live in ways that thwart that system. We are constantly consuming calories. This endless stream of food (starch, sugar, and protein) activates mTOR, which shuts down autophagy. As a result, we never give our bodies the much-needed break from the flood of energy needed to do the cleanup and repair work.
Periods of fasting give our body a chance to clean up the damaged proteins we create from the way we live. Sugar and starch also drive accelerated inflammation, create hormonal chaos, and age our stem cells. If you want to live a long and healthy life, sugar and starch should be either eliminated or used very occasionally.
Hallmark 5: Epigenetic Damage
It’s helpful to conceptualize epigenetics using the example of a piano. The piano player plays the keys of our DNA, producing a melody we call “health” or a cacophony called “disease.” Think of the epigenome as a very sensitive microphone picking up healing or harmful signals from your environment.
Similarly, your DNA, through the epigenome, is listening carefully to all the messages conveyed throughout your whole life. Too much bad stuff damages the epigenome and makes you age faster, while the good stuff translates into instructions for your genetic code.