A Youth Thief Hiding in Your Pantry?
By
Dr. Scott Olson, ND
Posted October 5, 2020
How does aging faster sound?
Ha! Any smart person would say “No Thanks!” to more wrinkles, slowing down, harder hearing, forgetting things…
You probably already try and do all you can to slow the process down. Hydrate, exercise, use sunscreen, etc.
But here’s the thing…
There’s one HUGE hidden culprit that will put you on the fast train to aging.
I’m talking about highly processed foods.
These foods speed up your biological clock faster than you can say, “I’ll take the extra fries.”
Ultra-processed foods are foods that have almost no ACTUAL food in them (like chips, soft drinks, breakfast cereal, chicken nuggets…).
Ultra-processed food are snacks, drinks, ready meals full of sugar and artificial colors, preservatives.
We eat them because they are easy to grab and mighty tasty.
But that convenience comes with a high price.
A study, recently published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that ultra-processed food shortened telomeres.
Telomeres are sort of like those little plastic things on the end of shoelaces (called an aiglet). If you want to keep your shoelaces from unraveling, you need aiglets. Once the aiglet is gone, your shoelaces will fall apart.
The same is true with your DNA: lose your telomeres and your DNA unravels and becomes unstable.
Long telomeres are better than short ones and as we get older telomeres most people get shorter telomeres. Shorter telomeres have also been linked to high blood pressure, obesity, depression, type 2 diabetes, many types of cancers.
The research team in the study looked at almost 900 people (average age of 68) and broke them into four groups depending on how many servings of ultra-processed foods they consumed.
The risk of shorter telomeres increased by 29 percent in people eating 2.5 servings or less of day of highly processed foods!
That number jumped to 40 percent in the group eating 2.5 to 3 servings a day.
If you were in the ultra-high group (eating more than 3 servings a day), you had a staggering 82 percent chance of having short telomeres.
The shortened telomeres are the result of these non-foods raising inflammation and oxidative stress throughout the body.
If you want to keep your telomeres (and you) healthy – stay away from processed foods and much as possible and buy yourself some insurance by following my anti-aging program.
Dr. Scott’s Aging Delay Program:
- Get 1,000-3,000 IU of Vitamin D every day. If it is winter, or you spend a lot of time inside, then you need to supplement every day.
- Exercise. Getting enough exercise is vital to your anti-aging program – and if you exercise outside, you’ll get more sunlight to help your body produce its own vitamin D.
- Eat a diet that is full of color and as many veggies as you can.
- Take anti-aging nutrients. Alpha-lipoic acid, CoQ10, and astaxanthin are powerful antioxidants and anti-aging supplements.
- Keep your blood sugar under control. One of the other reasons why we age so fast is because of out-of-control blood sugar. Use the mineral chromium and the herbal extract berberine to help keep your blood sugar under control.
- Make sure you have enough nutrients to support your whole body. This usually means taking a multivitamin to make up for nutrient shortfalls.
Written By Dr. Scott Olson, ND
Nearly 25 years ago, failed mainstream medical treatments left Dr. Olson in constant pain – and his health in ruins. And that’s when he did something REVOLUTIONARY. He began his career in medicine – and dedicated his life to uncovering the true, underlying causes of disease.
Through his innovative medical practices in Tennessee and Colorado, Dr. Olson has helped cure countless seniors from across America of arthritis… heart disease… diabetes… and even cancer. All without risky prescription drugs or painful surgeries.
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