Trending Now

We have become a trend society.  It’s fun in some ways and sad in others.

The fun part is there is always something new to look at, evaluate and if you are so motivated- to try.

The sad part is that a lot of people need trends because they cannot focus for more than a few minutes days or weeks on anything. This makes us reactive instead of proactive.

One of the greatest secrets to success I have ever encountered is simple persistence and the ability to create a habit that is healthy. Like it or not the body does not respond at sound bite speed and all the “hacking” in the world will still only lead you to a few simple habits that need and I mean NEED to be tended to daily.

Sleep, exercise eating and stretching are not sexy. They are in every single book about health that has been written for the past century and will remain so. In our book the Immortality Edge one critic wrote: this is hardly new advice.  I guess he skipped all the chapters on telomeres and telomerase.

So what is trending now?

Fish oil is back in vogue again after threats of a massive groundbreaking study that would debunk the whole myth of fish oil being good for you. That study apparently never materialized or if it did for some reason it’s not allowed to be seen by the world.

With that out of the way we now see that fish oil is good for high blood pressure, diabetes, epilepsy, pregnancy and developing children. How long will this trend last?  I am guessing based on media behavior and “trends” the answer is about 6 weeks.  At that point there will be a 180 degree turn around and fish oil will be bad again for another month or so and then by the holiday we will be back to its good for you again.

The habit you should have is to take your 4 to 6 fish oil on a daily basis. Trends will change; human biology will not at least not for millions of years.

On the telomere front everyone is writing about telomeres these days.  The continued unending surrounding controversy around that topic that “trends” is “Does telomerase cause cancer”.

This stems from the fact that at some point 85% of human cancers express large amounts of telomerase to keep themselves going. It ignores the fact that telomerase inhibitors have not worked against cancer, and the other 15% of cancers have an alternative method and so far the activation of telomerase is a late occurrence in the cancer chain of events.

On top of that the class action lawsuit against TA-65 for false claims was dismissed.

Of course there will be more angry people who don’t like the concept that we might be able to slow or stop the aging but for the moment it’s all quiet on the Western Front LOL!

The importance of having health and normal telomere length or even longer telomeres has been reinforced by yet another cancer-telomere association that uses genetic evaluations of the genes that maintain telomeres.  When these genes are defective or poorly regulated,the incidence of cancer increases. The latest cancer to show that association is melanoma.

Recall back in 2011 JAMA released a study that showed a pretty much global association with cancer incidence and short telomeres. Other cancers like melanoma and glioblastoma are associated with longer telomeres.  Once again its important for you to understand that these are not “longer healthier telomeres” and the loss of regulation is the problem not the length.

So as more and more people jump on the telomere bandwagon my prediction is that soon a well known internet entrepreneur doctor will release a book on the topic. Hint: It will not be me- my book will be much broader and in point of fact I actually started that trend with the Immortality Edge!

Finally and briefly, the mitochondria are in the news again as possible sources for some of the diseases of aging, cancer as a metabolic disease instead of a genetic one is gaining momentum, and we are seeing a resurgence of the high fat diet. The latter is not mainstream but its heading that way.

My predictions on these are: Mitochondria will found to be directly linked to cancer but controlled by nuclear telomere length, cancer therapies will eventually include “metabolic profiling” as well as genetic profiling because we have spent too much money and are far too in love with genes to just abandon them as a cause for all of our problems, and some watered down version of a truly high fat diet will come out with the name of someone famous attached to it.  It will ultimately fail because people will not be able to understand what carbohydrate restriction really means much less practice it!

It you are serious about your health and reversing and or slowing down the aging process stay with me.

If you are serious about not wasting your time on stuff that cannot work- stay with me.

If you want to know what really happens, what really matters and what it does to a live human being who does not mind being a guinea pig- stay with me.

If not by all means follow the trends!

 

Best,

Doc

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