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the

L O N Gand

SHORTof

ANTI-AGING

The body’s internal clock of aging constantly turns, causing wrinkles, age spots, loss of elasticity and an

overall decline in health. For centuries, the clock has ticked on as explorers, scientists and formulators have searched for fountains of youth and magical elixirs to reverse the clock. But there has been no cure for the curse of aging on the horizon, until now.

rate of aging

how the secret lies at the endsof your DNA

by Raquel Levy

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TELOMERE

CHROMOSOME

CELL

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After years of research and numerous scientific breakthroughs, Bill Andrews, Ph.D., molecular biologist and founder of Sierra Sciences, says he has found a way to not just reduce the appear-ance of aging, but reduce and reverse the rate of aging and declining health. His findings have been used to create skin creams, serums and supplements that have shown dramatic results in the field of anti-aging. To understand this breakthrough, it’s important to under-stand the cause of aging, how it can be reversed and what we can do about it.

the problem:Why We Age

It was discovered in the 1970s that bio-logical aging is caused by the short-ening of caps at the end of our DNA strands, called telomeres. Telomeres, meaning “end part” in Greek, are found in each cell of the body, number-ing them at more than 100 trillion. “The analogy that I like to use is like a long shoelace,” says Andrews. “At the very tips of the shoelaces are the caps which protect the shoelaces. Telomeres are the equivalent of these caps, protect-ing the DNA.”

Scientists noticed that telomeres get shorter every time a cell divides,

which happens often in humans. While the DNA replicates, telomeres can-not regrow. This inability to duplicate telomeres when going through DNA replication is what causes human cells to age. “You’re first conceived as a single cell embryo, and your telomeres are 15,000 bases then,” Andrews ex-plains. “You go through a lot of cell division to make a baby and by the time you’re born your telomeres have already shortened to about 10,000 bases. The problem begins later, be-cause you still have a lot of cell division to do, and as you grow up your telo-meres get shorter and shorter. When your telomeres get down to 5,000 bas-es, that’s equivalent to the shoelaces just falling apart.”

Scientists could now measure a person’s telomeres and determine how old they were, making telomeres the only clock of aging ever discovered in the human body. With this under-standing, Andrews and his team of scientists and researchers set out to stop the clock and combat telomere shortening.

SKIN | THE LONG & SHORT OF ANTI-AGING

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the solution:Telomerase

The first breakthrough came with the discover y of telomerase in the mid 1990s, an enzyme that prevents telomere shortening in our reproductive cells. “The reproductive cell line never shows any sign of aging, and it couldn’t because if it did our children would be born as old if not older than we are,” Andrews explains. “It’s the only non-aging cell line found in humans.”

T h e f i r s t ex p e r i m e nt w i t h telomerase in a petri dish produced age reversal. By causing normal cells to produce telomerase, the cells got younger. For this discovery, Andrews was awarded second place as "National Inventor of the Year" in 1997 and his colleagues went on to win the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for their work on how telomerase impacts telomere length.

Then, in a first of its kind study, a 2010 Harvard Medical School experiment showed a dramatic reversal of aging in mice1. After prematurely aging the mice, scientists caused their genes to produce telomerase and found they not only looked younger, but had aged backwards. “The mice became young again, they could reproduce, their memory got better,” Andrews shares. “It’s the only thing on the planet ever that has truly reversed aging.”

Andrews’ work with telomerase was also beneficial to cancer research. “I put the antisense of telomerase into cancer cells and found that I could kill cancer cells by making them die of old age, with no effect on normal cells,” he shares. After winning numerous awards for his cancer research, Andrews started Sierra Sciences to focus his efforts on aging, reflected in the organization’s motto of “Cure Aging or Die Trying.” However, Andrews makes clear his organization is not seeking to make humans immortal

or immune to accidents and disease. “We’re reversing declining health in the aging process,” he clarifies.

the tug of war:Applying Telomerase

“Telomere shortening and lengthening is like a constant tug of war,” Andrews explains. “In every cell in your body except your reproductive system, it’s a one sided tug of war. You’ve got people pulling to shorten your telomere and that’s all that’s happening. When you add something to the cell that causes telomerase to be produced, it’s the same as adding people to the other side of the tug of war.”

Andrews and his team of scientists worked silently and diligently for years,

testing hundreds of thousands of compounds for their ability to activate telomerase. They discovered more than 900 chemicals and 30 natural products to induce the production of telomerase in human cells, some stronger than others. Andrews is now a named inventor on 35 issued telomerase patents, some of which he has licensed to companies that created products to fight telomere shortening.

As of today, there are three licensed products on the market that have been shown to reduce the rate of telomere shortening. The compound c0314818 was licensed to a company in New Zealand to create a skin serum. Clinical trials revealed that after 30 days, the serum decreased wrinkles, reduced redness, pigmentation and

Raquel Levy is the editorial associate at Les

Nouvelles Esthétiques & Spa. She holds a

bachelor’s degree in Communications with an

emphasis in writing and editing. Levy has been

a lifestyle and feature writer for more than five

years. Contact her at raquel@lneonline.com.

KEEPING TELOMERES LONG

In the tug of war against aging, avoiding accel-erated telomere shortening is perhaps most im-portant. Numerous scientific studies have been conducted showing that certain lifestyle choices can prematurely shorten telomeres, while others can assist in lengthening.

SHORTENERS V. LENGTHENERS

“Everything you’ve ever heard about a healthy lifestyle actually affects telomeres,” Andrews ad-vises. “Trans and saturated fats induce inflamma-tion and they also induce accelerated telomere shortening. Gluten and dairy do the same thing and sugar is one of the worst ones.” Avoiding these can prevent early aging, along with:

REDUCING STRESS: Several studies have been completed on telomere length and stress, show-ing stress is associated with decreased telomer-ase activity2. Pessimists have been shown to have shorter telomeres than optimists3, adults that were abused as children have shorter telomeres than those who weren’t4, even depression can cause accelerated telomere shortening5.

AVOIDING SMOKING AND OBESITY: In both women who smoked and obese women, telo-mere length decreased steadily. Both are states of heightened oxidative stress, which increases the rate of telomere erosion and inflammation6.

MEDITATION AND YOGA: Those who partici-pate in grounding exercises like meditation and yoga have significantly longer telomeres than those who don’t7.

EXERCISE: Published in several journal arti-cles, endurance exercise has proven to decrease the rate of accelerated telomere shortening. Participants of 10K runs have longer telomeres than those who do not run, marathon runners have longer telomeres than 10K runners and ul-tramarathon runners have longer telomeres than marathon runners8.

INCREASING ANTIOXIDANTS, OMEGA-3

AND VITAMIN D: These have all been shown to decrease the rate of accelerated telomere shortening, reducing free radicals and inflamma-tion, both major causes of telomere shortening9.

improved skin firmness and elasticity. The serum has recently been licensed to sell throughout the world, just launched in the U.S. this spring. In the form of nutritional supplements, another formulat ion combines bioactives, complex botanicals and vitamins to support telomere health. In a clinical study, individuals using this formulation showed a significant elevation of catalase, an enzyme that prevents oxidative stress, which causes telomere shortening. Available in capsules and a skin cream, one of the first licensed compounds can help maintain and rebuild telomeres. The specially formulated skin cream was clinically shown to increase collagen levels, improve skin firmness, reduce inflammation, fine lines and wrinkles.

Though current products both topical and oral do not yet add enough to the lengthening side of the tug of war to cause complete age reversal, slowing the shortening down is enough to produce results.

the future: Winning the Tug of War

Andrews’ focus for the future is on developing stronger compounds and methods, and he believes they are close. Using the royalties from their licensed patents, he and his team con-tinue researching and developing for-mulations as more and more people take notice of his work.

“When I first started telling people about my research, my first audience was a room of four people,” he shares. “Now I speak to audiences of 12,000. A lot of people are suddenly realizing the cure for aging has already been discovered, it just needs a little more research to get it perfected enough to start providing to humans.”

SKIN | THE LONG & SHORT OF ANTI-AGING SKIN | THE LONG & SHORT OF ANTI-AGING

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SOURCES

1. Jas ke l io f f M, e t a l . Te lomer ase

reactivation reverses tissue degeneration

in aged telomerase-deficient mice. Nature.

2011;469:102-107.

2. Epel, E. S., Blackburn, E. H., Lin, J., Dhabhar,

F. S., Adler, N. E., Morrow, J. D., & Cawthon, R.

M. (2004). Accelerated telomere shortening

in response to life stress. Proceedings of

the National Academy of Sciences, 101(49),

17312-17315.

3. O’Donovan, A., Lin, J., Dhabhar, F.,

Wolkowitz, O., Tillie, J., Blackburn, E., & Epel,

E. (2009). Pessimism correlates with leukocyte

telomere shortness and elevated interleukin-6

in post-menopausal women. Brain, Behavior,

and Immunity, 23(4), 446-449.

4. Tyrka, A. R., Price, L. H., Kao, H., Porton,

B., Marsella, S. A., & Carpenter, L. L. (2010).

Childhood Maltreatment and Telomere

Shortening: Preliminary Support for an Effect

of Early Stress on Cellular Aging. Biological

Psychiatry, 67(6), 531-534.

5. Simon, N. M., Smoller, J. W., Mcnamara,

K. L., Maser, R. S., Zalta, A. K., Pollack, M. H.,

Wong, K. (2006). Telomere Shortening and

Mood Disorders: Preliminary Support for a

Chronic Stress Model of Accelerated Aging.

Biological Psychiatry, 60(5), 432-435.

6. Valdes, A., Andrew, T., Gardner, J., Kimura,

M., Oelsner, E., Cherkas, L., . . . Spector, T.

(2005). Obesity, cigarette smoking, and

telomere length in women. The Lancet,

366(9486), 662-664.

7. Epel, E., Daubenmier, J., Moskowitz, J.

T., Folkman, S., & Blackburn, E. (2009). Can

Meditation Slow Rate of Cellular Aging?

Cognitive Stress, Mindfulness, and Telomeres.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,

1172(1), 34-53.

8. Denham, J., Nelson, C. P., O’Brien, B.

J., Nankervis, S. A., Denniff, M., Harvey,

J. T., . . . Charchar, F. J. (2013). Longer

Leukocyte Telomeres Are Associated with

Ultra-Endurance Exercise Independent of

Cardiovascular Risk Factors. PLoS ONE, 8(7).

9. Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., Epel, E. S., Belury,

M. A., Andridge, R., Lin, J., Glaser, R., . . .

Blackburn, E. (2013). Omega-3 fatty acids,

oxidative stress, and leukocyte telomere

length: A randomized controlled trial. Brain,

Behavior, and Immunity, 28, 16-24.

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SKIN | THE LONG & SHORT OF ANTI-AGING