I’m fascinated and bewildered by how increasingly early in life we seem to submit to the notion of being ‘old’ when so much of our body is in a constant state of regenesis. On a physical level alone (because, let’s face it, most of what is equated with premature ageing these days is obsession with our exterior, physical body) we have blood cells that renew every few hours, tastebud cells every few days and skin cells every month. Even our muscles regenerate entirely, albeit over a significantly longer period. I learnt today that if you are lucky enough to reach your eighties your heart will have completely renewed itself four times. What?! My excellent Dad has regrown his brilliant heart FOUR TIMES and he didn’t even need a ‘luxury, anti-ageing’ elixir to do so.
It’s fair to say that your body does a lot for you, and without asking very much in return. We have the power to offset so much of our physical, mental and emotional decline in simple, seemingly boring and unsexy ways: A consistently healthy, antioxidant rich diet, regular moderate exercise, eight hours sleep a night and adequate stress management will not only make you feel better but can go as far as to actually change the expression of your genes. The ever-emerging, ever fascinating field of epigenetics is teaching us that we are not, as it transpires, at the mercy of our inherited genetic predispositions. How you live your life, treat your body and even the way you interact with people around you can significantly alter which of your genes will express themselves and which of them won’t.
Our innate ability to effectively switch off some genes and switch on others in relatively inexpensive ways must be welcome news when it comes to combating degenerative disease. Scientists now believe we have the capacity to change the expression of over 90% of the genes relating to our health, as well as an ability to continuously grow new brain cells and increase the neural connections between those cells. Just think about that for a moment. You can choose to subscribe to a largely sexist, ageist, consumerist culture that wants to sell you your fragility and premature decline because you don’t have the face of your twenties in your fifties - or you can marvel at yourself as an ever-evolving being in a state of perpetual renewal, truly alive with the formation of trillions of new cells, ironically, right up until the day you die. Well, fun as decrepitude sounds, I choose the latter, thanks. Even as your cellular turnover eventually slows with time, conceivably, parts of you might still be silently transforming, evolving and manifesting a healthier, wiser, kinder, perhaps, more content you. It’s not very glamorous, or rock and roll, and it won’t give you the tender face of your teens but let’s get real on priorities here: If we are fortunate enough to have access to clean water, healthy food and life practices like yoga in the first place, the odds of us winning the Age Well lottery are stacked heavily in our favour. So whilst remembering that, yes, ageing and death are an inevitable part and privilege of a hopefully long well-lived life, we can also remember the choice of how we age looks increasingly like it is ours and ours alone.
Credits: Epigenetics statistics Dr Perlmutter Alzheimer’s research.