I was in an online meeting with Deepak Chopra and he announced current research projects regarding telomeres. These are the end caps of our chromosomes (DNA) that protect these delicate message carriers from chemicals, radiation, bad food, viral invasion....the external world. His research finds if you meditate regularly, your telomeres stay long. (when they get short the end is near-damage to DNA occurs and just a matter of time before mutation occurs and something grows the wrong way) He has even enlisted the expertise of Elizabeth Blackburn who is a Nobel Laureate who discovered telomerase, the enzyme that keeps your telomeres long.
Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease has found reproducible results if people change to a mostly vegan diet, walk, practice stress reduction/yoga and go through group therapy. He took the same program and proved with Elizabeth Blackburn's help the the telomeres in early prostate cancer patients stayed long and the prostate cancer in some was reversed. Herb Benson and Jeff Dusek found the the more you meditate, the more genes change (published in PlosOne) .....imagine, that is a positive effect and you don't even have to leave your bedroom! So now the problem is getting people to make changes like the above before disease occurs. VERY HARD.
Luckily the price for checking telomerase activity is available and decreasing slowly. The only company that offers the test to the public is Spectracell Labs. For 200.00$ you can find out if you compare to others in your age group. (The Today Show) If your level is better than expected for age, it would be reinforcement that your lifestyle is probably healthy. The problem could come up if an obese smoker gets the test and it looks "ok"- this might serve as positive ammunition to continue with dangerous living. I think you would need 2 tests in time (spaced out by 5-10 years to figure if you are improving or worsening.
I would guide my patients to challenge their lives by introducing healthy Thinking/Eating/Activity to their daily routine. It has to be a routine and you have to like it for sustainability. If you jump off the deep end and just commit to taking vitamins and "eating when you can".....NOT SUSTAINABLE. I believe every person has to construct their own template for change and often it is difficult to hold the microscope to yourself. An outside opinion would always be valuable. It is too easy to procrastinate the "Change" - something will always come up and we will reason our way out of our plans. I like the way the registered dietitian at First Health Associates thinks. Tom likes to develop an "implementation intention" when designing programs for weight loss. You set a goal (easy) and when you attain goal, you are triggered to go onto the next challenge. "Lets get you below 400 pounds first then talk about 395.".
Ultimately if you catch yourself saying, "I gotta stop this" or "I know what I am doing is bad"....every cell in your body has already unraveled the DNA, created a protein, changed the protein into a hormone, sent the hormone to your brain and created a message that "you have to change". If you choose to ignore the message, the only thing that gets damaged is your DNA and sooner or later it won't be able to form messages anymore. BYE!!
