Dr. Cindy Leung ScD MPH from the University of California, San Francisco gave an excellent presentation on sugar-sweetened beverages, food and diet patterns and how they effect telomere length, and thereby aging. Imagine telomeres to be the "plastic cap", at the end of your show lace that keeps it from unraveling and fraying.
Telomeres are what keep your DNA on your chromosomes from "degrading" so-to-speak. If your telomeres erode fast you age quicker. If they stay stable or in some cases increase you slow or stop the aging process in a sense. So it's a hot topic of things that you can do (exercise or be sedentary) or take (nutraceuticals, foods diet patterns) to improve your telomeres.
What Dr. Leung and her colleagues discovered was that:
Foods that shorten telomeres (not good, increase aging)
- Red meats (saturated fat)
- Processed meats
- Butter
- Sugar sweetened beverages
- White flour (refined carbohydates)
- whole fat milk products (?)
(NOT A FOOD BUT SO DID STRESS, ESPECIALLY CARE TAKING REDUCED TELOMERE LENGTH)
Foods that lengthened telomeres (good, slowed or reversed aging) were:
- FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
- Seaweed
- Whole grains, cereal fibers
- Omega-3 fatty acids (salmon)
- Nuts
- Moderate alcohol
- Non-fat dairy (?)
- (EXERCISE !)
Sugary beverage and food consumption, and leukocyte telomere length maintenance in pregnant women.
Be and Stay Well,
Kirk
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