More Than Power

People like to say education is power. A study funded by the British Heart Foundation, with researchers from the UK and the US, suggests it may be something closer to life.

The finding: lower educational attainment correlated with shorter telomeres and faster biological aging. What surprised me was the timing. The effect tracked back to what happened early in life, not to anything that happened later. Adult socioeconomic status and late life education did not appear to change the outcome in any measurable way.

In other words, whatever shaped you out to your early twenties shapes a fair bit of the aging trajectory that follows.

Two things worth flagging before anyone draws bigger conclusions than the data supports. First, telomere loss does not begin at birth. It begins at conception. The old line “you start dying the moment you are born” is wrong. Cells start dividing, and telomeres start shortening, the moment the first division happens. Second, this was a small study, around 450 people, and it was observational, not randomized or placebo controlled. The right way to read it is “generally suggestive, subject to variables.”

So no, do not give up on late life learning. I have not, and I have no plans to. Keep reading, keep arguing with smart people, keep your brain in the fight. I have written before that the brain is not a passive bystander to aging. It is a participant. So is your telomere biology.

What I would actually do about it

Education is one input. Telomere maintenance is another, and it is the one most people can do something about in their fifties and sixties. As of the published data, TA-65 remains the most clinically documented telomerase activator we have. The first peer reviewed paper appeared in Rejuvenation Research in September 2010. A double blind placebo controlled study based in Barcelona finished enrollment more recently, and that one is the one I am watching for.

The wheels of science move slowly. While they turn, I am not waiting to give my telomeres what I can. Neither should you.

Dr Dave