Your birth certificate says that you're 53 ... or 67 ... or 81. But thanks to your body's amazing ability to regenerate continuously, many of your body parts are far younger.
You see, a natural function of your body is to create new cells to replace those that have worn out. Your body generates new blood cells, new skin cells, new hair and new cells for your digestive organs. In fact, most parts of your body are being replaced, to some extent, every day.
Did you know that the muscles in your legs and the tissue within your gastrointestinal system are only about 15 years old? That the red blood cells that deliver oxygen to every cell in your body are only four months old, on average? That the cells on the surface of your skin have a lifespan of just two weeks?
Get motivated If our bodies are constantly rebuilding ourselves, then we all have the chance to improve our bodies greatly and, by extension, our health - starting now.
How well will your body's regeneration system do the job? That's where you come in. While cell turnover naturally slows with age, giving our internal 'mechanic' the right parts for the job (healthy food) and staying away from the things that slow regeneration (such as too much fat and sugar, smoking, too much alcohol and excess stress) will make all the difference.
Teach your body to repair
So how can you help? As it turns out, your body has different regeneration modes. We'll call the less helpful one the 'slow mechanic' and the optimal one the 'young mechanic'. You can choose which body-repair mechanic will do the work, experts now believe. The key? Exercise.
Without physical activity, experts now suspect, your body surmises that it is winter - literally. Remember that your genetic coding isn't based on life as its lived today, but as it was lived many thousands of years ago. And if you were sitting around day after day back then, it usually meant it was the cold-weather season, with you and your family huddled together inside for warmth,
long past the season for gathering and hunting. And that meant that your body needed to shift into hibernation mode; infact, your top priority would be to burn as few calories as possible. so the slow mechanic took over, doing minimal work and allowing your bones to thin, your muscles to weaken and more.
But if you get up and move around everyday, your genetic coding says, 'Aha! I need stronger bones and muscles, more brain cells to figure out how to hunt that wild boar and a stronger cardiovascular system to keep it all supplied with oxygen and nutrients while I forage for nuts and berries in the woods.' Then, the young mechanic gets to work, bolstering key body systems and creating strong new cells.
Find time to exercise It's up to you whether you allow your body to run down or do all you can to maintain its strengthen and vitality. The good news is that later in life you have more chances to work on keeping active. A study by the Imperial Cancer Research Fund came to the startling conclusion that older British women are more likely to exercise regularly than younger women. Researchers found that almost half of women over 65 exercised daily, compared with only a quarter of women aged 25 to 34. Overall, the older age group exercised twice as often as the younger ones, who had trouble finding time.
Professor Ian Robertson says that as we get older, aerobic exercise also plays a vital part in maintaining Brain function. In one study, people over 60 who exercised regularly showed none of the usual mental decline over the following three years. In another, improved mental performance was seen after four months of moderate aerobic exercise.
Fitness of body and mind are linked. Professor Robertson explains. Exercise promotes the growth of blood vessels in the brain and boosts production of key brain chemicals that encourage cell growth and help to make new neural links. 'For the over-50s, exercise is a sort of wonder-drug that makes you more mentally agile, less forgetful and delays the loss of sharpness that would otherwise happen,' he says.
Make space for friends Another important factor is to stay happy and socially connected. Those who do so live longer and stay healthier, even after major health problems such as a heart attack or cancer. In contrast, anxiety and isolation raise the odds for developing complications and perhaps even dying earlier.
A NEW BODY EVERY DAY
Inside a research lab at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, researcher Jonas Frisen, PhD, has borrowed a technique normally used to date ancient archaeological treasures and focused it on the human body. Dr Frisen checks levels of radioactive carbon-14 in cells using this high-tech system to determine the age of various cells and tissues. He announced recently that while some tissues in the human body date from before birth, others arrived on the scene less than a month ago.
Cells that face lots of wear and tear, such as skin cells, red blood cells and those that line the stomach and intestinal tract, turn over quickly. The liver, which detoxifies every piece of food, every beverage and every drug you ingest, replaces all its cells in less than 18 months.
The oldest tissues in your body? The muscle cells of your heart; the inner lens of the eye, which forms before birth; and the nerve cells of your brain's cerebral cortex. Dr Frisen estimates that the average age of your cells is seven to ten years old - making you a stronger at any age.
The power to regenerate Scientists at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Centre at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium have discovered a progenitor cell in the pancreas of mice that can generate new insulin-producing cells - exciting news that could one day help people with type 1 and even type 2 diabetes to regrow a natural insulin supply instead of relying on medication.
Meanwhile, researchers at the British Heart Foundation are investigating the limited ability of human hearts to regenerate cells, in the hope of developing methods to grow new heart muscle - an advance that scientists hope one day to exploit to help survivors of heart attacks and congestive heart failure to develop stronger, better-functioning tickers.
The biggest news came a decade ago, when neuroscientists turned the conventional wisdom about brain cells upside down. Once, experts agreed that the human brain didn't grow new nerve cells, believing we received a lifetime's supply at birth (or grew the rest soon after, as the brain developed in early childhood). With age, these cells grew weak and began to die ...and that was that. But now, we know that, at least in some areas, your brain can develop stronger connections and even brand-new cells.
The bottom line: your body has a vast capacity for repair - and you don't have to be a scientist in a lab to experience the benefits.
MAXIMISING REGENERATION
There are four strategies that have proven to be the best fro nurturing your body's repair system - and ensure that the young mechanic is doing the work. These are strategies that keep coming up in this book - in one case, for maximum body rejuvenation; in other cases, for maximum disease prevention, healing, energy, mood and beyond. Hopefully, with each new mention, you will become increasingly convinced of their powers to give you long life and long health.
Strategy 1 Exercise
The new Foundation of Youth: a daily walk plus three strength-training sessions each week. As mentioned, exciting research is proving that physical activity flips the youth switch, signalling to your body to grow younger as it repairs, maintains and regenerate itself. Among the key
body systems that benefit:
Muscles In one research study, 70 year olds who performed regular strength-training exercise were as strong as 28 year olds who didn't work out. Skip exercise and you'll lose muscle strength with every passing year.
Brain Once, expert believed that age-related drops in memory and cognitive skills were the inevitable result of dying Brain cells. Now, scientists know that the brain can strengthen old cells and generate new ones. Exercise releases a fertiliser-like substance called BDNF.
Heart A heart-threatening lifestyle - replete with high-fat foods, too many calories, little exercise and smoking - can leave you with stiff, clogged arteries 40 years older than your biological age. Ageing also weakens the heart's ability to contract and pump blood. Exercise makes heart muscle contract an pump blood. Exercise makes heart muscle contract more forcefully, makes arteries more supple and slows atherosclerosis.
Bones Your skeleton grows lighter with time. But research shows that strength-training pumps up the body's natural bone-building system so that bone density increases. Without it, you can lose 2 percent of density per year, raising your risk of fractures.
Strategy 2 Shed stress, make connectionspeople's brains are hardwired to live in groups. After all, in a group was the safest place to be in prehistoric times. So when we're isolated, our stress levels rise; to our subconscious minds, prolonged periods of isolation aren't safe or natural, so our brains respond by producing stress chemicals to goad us into action.
some proof of the powerful influence that stress reduction and social connections can have on your body's repair system:
A Volvo won't run with replacement engine parts pulled from a beaten-up car. And your body won't be able to repair itself with the wrong parts, either. Every time you eat junk food, refined sugars or grain products such as white bread, trans fats and highly processed foods, you're doing just that. Nature's top-of-the-line parts list for the human body are all the nutrients you'll find in lean protein, oily fish, nuts, berries and - especially - antioxidant-rich fruit and vegetables.
The proof that it works:
Smoking. Exposure to secondhand smoke. Drinking to excess. This bad stuff thwarts your body's regeneration efforts. The up side: study after study proves that your body's repair system goes back to work the moment you give them up:
within minutes of stopping smoking, your lungs and cardiovascular system begin repairing themselves. Blood pressure falls closer to a healthier level within 8 hours.
You see, a natural function of your body is to create new cells to replace those that have worn out. Your body generates new blood cells, new skin cells, new hair and new cells for your digestive organs. In fact, most parts of your body are being replaced, to some extent, every day.
Did you know that the muscles in your legs and the tissue within your gastrointestinal system are only about 15 years old? That the red blood cells that deliver oxygen to every cell in your body are only four months old, on average? That the cells on the surface of your skin have a lifespan of just two weeks?
Get motivated If our bodies are constantly rebuilding ourselves, then we all have the chance to improve our bodies greatly and, by extension, our health - starting now.
How well will your body's regeneration system do the job? That's where you come in. While cell turnover naturally slows with age, giving our internal 'mechanic' the right parts for the job (healthy food) and staying away from the things that slow regeneration (such as too much fat and sugar, smoking, too much alcohol and excess stress) will make all the difference.
Teach your body to repair
So how can you help? As it turns out, your body has different regeneration modes. We'll call the less helpful one the 'slow mechanic' and the optimal one the 'young mechanic'. You can choose which body-repair mechanic will do the work, experts now believe. The key? Exercise.
Without physical activity, experts now suspect, your body surmises that it is winter - literally. Remember that your genetic coding isn't based on life as its lived today, but as it was lived many thousands of years ago. And if you were sitting around day after day back then, it usually meant it was the cold-weather season, with you and your family huddled together inside for warmth,
long past the season for gathering and hunting. And that meant that your body needed to shift into hibernation mode; infact, your top priority would be to burn as few calories as possible. so the slow mechanic took over, doing minimal work and allowing your bones to thin, your muscles to weaken and more.
But if you get up and move around everyday, your genetic coding says, 'Aha! I need stronger bones and muscles, more brain cells to figure out how to hunt that wild boar and a stronger cardiovascular system to keep it all supplied with oxygen and nutrients while I forage for nuts and berries in the woods.' Then, the young mechanic gets to work, bolstering key body systems and creating strong new cells.
Find time to exercise It's up to you whether you allow your body to run down or do all you can to maintain its strengthen and vitality. The good news is that later in life you have more chances to work on keeping active. A study by the Imperial Cancer Research Fund came to the startling conclusion that older British women are more likely to exercise regularly than younger women. Researchers found that almost half of women over 65 exercised daily, compared with only a quarter of women aged 25 to 34. Overall, the older age group exercised twice as often as the younger ones, who had trouble finding time.
Professor Ian Robertson says that as we get older, aerobic exercise also plays a vital part in maintaining Brain function. In one study, people over 60 who exercised regularly showed none of the usual mental decline over the following three years. In another, improved mental performance was seen after four months of moderate aerobic exercise.
Fitness of body and mind are linked. Professor Robertson explains. Exercise promotes the growth of blood vessels in the brain and boosts production of key brain chemicals that encourage cell growth and help to make new neural links. 'For the over-50s, exercise is a sort of wonder-drug that makes you more mentally agile, less forgetful and delays the loss of sharpness that would otherwise happen,' he says.
Make space for friends Another important factor is to stay happy and socially connected. Those who do so live longer and stay healthier, even after major health problems such as a heart attack or cancer. In contrast, anxiety and isolation raise the odds for developing complications and perhaps even dying earlier.
A NEW BODY EVERY DAY
Inside a research lab at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, researcher Jonas Frisen, PhD, has borrowed a technique normally used to date ancient archaeological treasures and focused it on the human body. Dr Frisen checks levels of radioactive carbon-14 in cells using this high-tech system to determine the age of various cells and tissues. He announced recently that while some tissues in the human body date from before birth, others arrived on the scene less than a month ago.
Cells that face lots of wear and tear, such as skin cells, red blood cells and those that line the stomach and intestinal tract, turn over quickly. The liver, which detoxifies every piece of food, every beverage and every drug you ingest, replaces all its cells in less than 18 months.
The oldest tissues in your body? The muscle cells of your heart; the inner lens of the eye, which forms before birth; and the nerve cells of your brain's cerebral cortex. Dr Frisen estimates that the average age of your cells is seven to ten years old - making you a stronger at any age.
The power to regenerate Scientists at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Centre at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium have discovered a progenitor cell in the pancreas of mice that can generate new insulin-producing cells - exciting news that could one day help people with type 1 and even type 2 diabetes to regrow a natural insulin supply instead of relying on medication.
Meanwhile, researchers at the British Heart Foundation are investigating the limited ability of human hearts to regenerate cells, in the hope of developing methods to grow new heart muscle - an advance that scientists hope one day to exploit to help survivors of heart attacks and congestive heart failure to develop stronger, better-functioning tickers.
The biggest news came a decade ago, when neuroscientists turned the conventional wisdom about brain cells upside down. Once, experts agreed that the human brain didn't grow new nerve cells, believing we received a lifetime's supply at birth (or grew the rest soon after, as the brain developed in early childhood). With age, these cells grew weak and began to die ...and that was that. But now, we know that, at least in some areas, your brain can develop stronger connections and even brand-new cells.
The bottom line: your body has a vast capacity for repair - and you don't have to be a scientist in a lab to experience the benefits.
MAXIMISING REGENERATION
There are four strategies that have proven to be the best fro nurturing your body's repair system - and ensure that the young mechanic is doing the work. These are strategies that keep coming up in this book - in one case, for maximum body rejuvenation; in other cases, for maximum disease prevention, healing, energy, mood and beyond. Hopefully, with each new mention, you will become increasingly convinced of their powers to give you long life and long health.
Strategy 1 Exercise
The new Foundation of Youth: a daily walk plus three strength-training sessions each week. As mentioned, exciting research is proving that physical activity flips the youth switch, signalling to your body to grow younger as it repairs, maintains and regenerate itself. Among the key
body systems that benefit:
Muscles In one research study, 70 year olds who performed regular strength-training exercise were as strong as 28 year olds who didn't work out. Skip exercise and you'll lose muscle strength with every passing year.
Brain Once, expert believed that age-related drops in memory and cognitive skills were the inevitable result of dying Brain cells. Now, scientists know that the brain can strengthen old cells and generate new ones. Exercise releases a fertiliser-like substance called BDNF.
Heart A heart-threatening lifestyle - replete with high-fat foods, too many calories, little exercise and smoking - can leave you with stiff, clogged arteries 40 years older than your biological age. Ageing also weakens the heart's ability to contract and pump blood. Exercise makes heart muscle contract an pump blood. Exercise makes heart muscle contract more forcefully, makes arteries more supple and slows atherosclerosis.
Bones Your skeleton grows lighter with time. But research shows that strength-training pumps up the body's natural bone-building system so that bone density increases. Without it, you can lose 2 percent of density per year, raising your risk of fractures.
Strategy 2 Shed stress, make connectionspeople's brains are hardwired to live in groups. After all, in a group was the safest place to be in prehistoric times. So when we're isolated, our stress levels rise; to our subconscious minds, prolonged periods of isolation aren't safe or natural, so our brains respond by producing stress chemicals to goad us into action.
some proof of the powerful influence that stress reduction and social connections can have on your body's repair system:
- Men who survive a heart attack are four times less likely to die from a second heart attack if they come home to family members than if they come home to an empty home.
- Women with more friends and relatives in their lives are more likely to survive heart disease and cancer than those with few.
- People with heart disease who had been anxious, but then lowered their stress levels, significantly cut their risk of a heart attack, according to one Harvard Medical School study.
A Volvo won't run with replacement engine parts pulled from a beaten-up car. And your body won't be able to repair itself with the wrong parts, either. Every time you eat junk food, refined sugars or grain products such as white bread, trans fats and highly processed foods, you're doing just that. Nature's top-of-the-line parts list for the human body are all the nutrients you'll find in lean protein, oily fish, nuts, berries and - especially - antioxidant-rich fruit and vegetables.
The proof that it works:
- Every daily serving of veggies you add to your diet cuts your heart disease risk by 4 percent (or more) and your stroke risk by 3 to 5 percent.
- Just five servings of fruits and veggies a day lower diabetes risk by 39 percent.
- Subjects aged 70 and older who ate the most fresh produce, in one Australian study, had the fewest wrinkles.
- Eating one extra apple a day could reduce your risk of an early death by 20 percent concludes a University of Cambridge study that measured blood levels of vitamin C (a marker of fruit consumption) in almost 20,000 people.
- Adding two or more daily portions of fruit and vegetables could roughly halve your risk, regardless of age, blood pressure or smoking habits.
How old are you, really?
Here are the average ages of the cells in your body, based on new studies.
Stomach lining 5 days
Taste buds 10 days
Skin surface 2 weeks
Eyelashes 2 months
Red blood cells 4 months
Liver 300-500 days
Bones 10 years
Rib muscle 15.1 years
Stomach 15.9 years (excluding the lining)
Cerebellum 2.9 years younger than you are
Inner eye lens Older than you are
Strategy 4 Ditch the stuff that interferes with repair
Here are the average ages of the cells in your body, based on new studies.
Stomach lining 5 days
Taste buds 10 days
Skin surface 2 weeks
Eyelashes 2 months
Red blood cells 4 months
Liver 300-500 days
Bones 10 years
Rib muscle 15.1 years
Stomach 15.9 years (excluding the lining)
Cerebellum 2.9 years younger than you are
Inner eye lens Older than you are
Strategy 4 Ditch the stuff that interferes with repair
Smoking. Exposure to secondhand smoke. Drinking to excess. This bad stuff thwarts your body's regeneration efforts. The up side: study after study proves that your body's repair system goes back to work the moment you give them up:
within minutes of stopping smoking, your lungs and cardiovascular system begin repairing themselves. Blood pressure falls closer to a healthier level within 8 hours.
- Within 24 hours, your heart attack risk begins to fall. Within a month, lungs work better. (There's more on the benefits of quitting smoking in the pages ahead.)
- Your brain can repair itself even after damage inflicted by heavy drinking. In a study from the University of California, San Francisco, researchers found that alcoholics who stayed sober for nearly seven years performed as well as non-alcoholics in brain-function tests.
- Heart attack rates among non-smokers plummeted when a smoking ban was instituted in restaurants and bars in one mid-sized American town - something researchers attribute to a drop in exposure to second-hand smoke.
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