How and what you eat impacts every aspect of your health – it even influences how you age. Aging begins at the cellular level – and one marker of how rapidly cells are aging is telomere length. Telomeres are the tiny endcaps that hold chromosomes together and keep them from fraying as the cells replicate and divide. Some people liken them to the plastic tips on shoelaces that keep the lace from fraying. Telomeres gradually shorten with age, at varying rates, determined by genetics and, most importantly, lifestyle.
Unfortunately, shorter telomeres are linked with earlier mortality and a greater risk of age-related health problems, like heart disease. One of the most important lifestyle factors that impact telomere length is diet. Let’s look at some of the dietary mistakes that may influence telomere length and how quickly you age.
Dietary Mistakes: Not Prioritizing Whole Foods
We constantly hear about the importance of eating whole foods – and that’s good advice! Whole foods have only a single ingredient, in contrast to processed foods that often have a long list of synthetic additives. But can eating whole foods slow down aging?
In one study, patients with prostate cancer followed a whole foods diet with an emphasis on vegetables, fruits, and unrefined grains. They also restricted fat intake to 10% of calories. Another group of prostate cancer patients ate a typical American diet. After five years, the patients who dined on the whole food diet had telomeres that were 10% longer than the group that continued to eat the typical American diet. This group actually experienced telomere shortening.
The whole food group also made other positive lifestyle changes. They walked 30 minutes a day and did yoga and relaxation exercises to manage stress. So, some of the benefits may have come from more exercise and better stress management as well.
Put It into Practice:
Eat whole foods and skip the processed junk. Make whole food eating part of a bigger lifestyle plan that includes exercise and stress management. Lack of exercise, a poor diet, and stress, based on research, are all linked with shorter telomeres.
Dietary Mistakes: Making Sugar Part of Your Diet
Sugar is completely devoid of nutrition. Plus, consuming it pushes other healthier foods out of your diet. Yet, this isn’t the only way it contributes to aging. Sugar binds to collagen fibers and forms complexes called advanced glycation end-products. These complexes are damaging to collagen, the tough, fibrous tissue that keeps your skin firm and youthful and helps preserve joints.
Plus, glycation is linked with age-related diseases, like cardiovascular disease, when it happens inside blood vessels. For example, diabetics, due to their high blood sugar levels, experience more damaging glycation to tissues and blood vessels. This partially explains why diabetics have a higher risk of heart disease and often die prematurely.
Put It Into Practice:
Purge sugar from your diet. When you need something sweet, eat a whole piece of fruit. Make sure what you drink doesn’t contain sugar either. Even unsweetened fruit juice can cause a rapid rise in blood sugar due to the absence of fiber.
Dietary Mistakes: Not Getting Adequate Micronutrients
For cells to function properly, you need a balanced array of micronutrients, including vitamins and minerals. Micronutrients serve as co-factors for essential chemical reactions that help maintain health. Insufficient amounts of even a single vitamin or mineral creates a weak link in the metabolic chain that can impact chemical reactions critical for health. Some of these reactions may lead to tissue damage that contributes to aging and the risk of age-related diseases.
Put It Into Practice:
Select nutrient-dense foods – green, leafy vegetables and berries are two of the most nutrient dense groups of foods. Choose fruits and vegetables in colors that span the rainbow. The soil in many areas is slowly becoming depleted of vitamins and minerals. One study found that vegetables and fruits today contain less vitamin C, riboflavin, iron, calcium, and protein than they did 50 years ago. So, you may need to eat even more fruits and vegetables today to compensate.
Dietary Mistakes: Not Consuming Enough Protein
The average person consumes enough protein to accommodate a sedentary lifestyle. However, if you do vigorous exercise or weight train, you need more than the recommended 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Plus, you may need more protein once you get past the age of 60. One of the biggest problems associated with aging is the loss of muscle tissue, a condition called sarcopenia. As you get older, your muscle tissue becomes less responsive to the protein you take in through diet, a phenomenon known as anabolic resistance.
Normally, when you consume protein through diet, the amino acids are absorbed and muscle tissue uses those amino acids for muscle protein synthesis. With anabolic resistance, muscles are less responsive to dietary amino acids. To compensate, older people need more protein to reduce further age-related decline in muscle tissue. Some studies suggest that a diet that contains greater amounts of the essential amino acid leucine helps stimulate muscle protein synthesis in older men and women with anabolic resistance.
A study also showed that exercise, including resistance training, prior to a meal containing protein enhanced muscle protein synthesis in older, resistant individuals. Staying physically active and lifting weights is also one of the best ways to keep anabolic resistance at bay.
Put It Into Practice:
Make sure you’re getting enough protein in your diet. Loss of muscle tissue ages you by making you less functional. You need muscle to take up and use glucose as a means of preserving metabolic health and lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Dietary Mistakes: Eating Too Much Red Meat & Not Enough Plant Protein
Yes, you need protein but some of it should come from plant-based sources. A study carried out at the University of Glasgow revealed a link between dietary phosphate consumption from red meat and more rapid aging. One of the markers of aging used in the study was telomere length. In the study, both quantities of dietary-derived phosphate and red meat consumption were associated with markers of aging.
Put It Into Practice:
Meat isn’t the only source of protein. You can get protein from a variety of plant-based sources, including beans, lentils, nuts, whole grains, and soy. Plus, many vegetables also contain respectable quantities of protein. As long as you’re eating a variety of plant-based protein sources, you should get all the essential amino acids your body needs but can’t make.
The Bottom Line
Diet really does play a role in determining your chronological age. Make sure you’re not committing any of these dietary snafus that can age you prematurely.
References:
Today.com. “Healthy diet may reverse aging, study finds”
Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2011 Jan; 14(1): 28–34. doi: 10.1097/MCO.0b013e32834121b1
Today’s Dietitian Vol. 17 No. 4 P. 16 (April 2015).
Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2013;41(3):169-173.
Am. J. Physiol. 2006; 291: E381–7.
Aging (Albany NY). 2016 May;8(5):1135-49. doi: 10.18632/aging.100948.
Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 2011; 93:322–31.
J Cachexia Sarcopenia Muscle. 2012 Sep; 3(3): 157–162.
Scientific American. “Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious?”
The Guardian. “Eating too much red meat ‘can age the body’, researchers claim”
Related Articles By Cathe:
What Science Says About Overeating
Explaining the Possible Link Between Red Meat and Cancer
Is Muscle Loss the Only Reason Your Metabolism Slows with Age?
How Much Does Diet Contribute to Cancer Risk?
