Bio clock turned back

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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Simply reverse aging processes? It works - at least on a cellular level. You don't need pills for that - it helps to change your lifestyle a little, according to a study.

Exercise, relaxation, healthy eating - these three pillars of a healthy lifestyle have a significant influence on biological age and can actually have a rejuvenating effect. This proof has now been successful for the first time. The researchers working with Dean Ornish from the University of California used the length of the so-called telomeres as a yardstick for determining cell age. These structures sit like protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. They shorten with each cell division. At some point they are so short that the cell exhausts itself and dies.

Damaged protective caps

In humans, the vast majority of cells are unable to regenerate their telomeres. The biological cell age can therefore be read from the condition of the protective caps. This can be very different from person to person - on the one hand, because the telomeres of some people are longer from birth, on the other hand, because an unhealthy lifestyle means that the cell has to divide more frequently - the telomeres are continuously shortening. Previous research has shown that short telomeres are linked to a variety of age-related diseases - including various forms of cancer, stroke, certain forms of dementia, osteoporosis, and diabetes.

Extended telomeres

"Often people think that they are at the mercy of their unfavorable genes," says study leader Ornish. But the current study proves the opposite. At least in some important body cells, the telomeres can grow again thanks to a positive lifestyle change.

For the study, the researchers observed 30 men who suffered from less aggressive prostate cancer. Her tumor growth was carefully monitored over a period of five years without countermeasures such as surgery being performed. Doctors call this option “close monitoring”. It is often used for less aggressive prostate cancer, as surgery can lead to impotence and incontinence.

Rejuvenated cells

Ten of the patients changed their lifestyle for the better during the study period. They were not asked too much: They should walk for 30 minutes six days a week, reduce stress with yoga-based breathing exercises and switch to a predominantly plant-based diet with little processed carbohydrates. The result: after just a few weeks, it became apparent that telomerase was activated in certain men's blood cells.

This endogenous substance causes the telomeres to regenerate in a few body cells such as human germ cells, but also in certain white blood cells. However, the ability to do this also decreases with age in these cells.

Grow instead of shrink

After five years, the telomeres of men with improved lifestyles had become ten percent longer in the blood cells. Participants whose lifestyles had remained unchanged had shrunk by three percent over the same period. "Our genes and our telomeres are not necessarily our destiny," Ornish says.

The researchers believe that lifestyle can have a similar rejuvenating effect on everyone. “We examined blood cells, not the cells in the prostate tumor,” emphasize the authors. A healthy lifestyle could possibly even have a life-prolonging effect - for cancer patients as well as for everyone else.

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