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Workplace CultureHow Lifestyle Changes May Support Long-Term Cellular Health
November 8, 2013
1 minute
readA study led by researchers at UC San Francisco and the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, published in The Lancet Oncology, looked at how a five-year lifestyle program affected telomere length — a marker linked to cellular ageing (Ornish et al., 2013).
Telomeres are protective caps found at the ends of chromosomes, and their length is one of several markers researchers use to study cellular ageing.
The study followed 35 men with early-stage prostate cancer over five years. Ten of the men took part in a comprehensive lifestyle program — a plant-based diet, moderate daily exercise, stress-reduction practices such as yoga and meditation, and weekly group support — while 25 men made no requested lifestyle changes.
Blood samples showed that telomere length increased by around 10% in the lifestyle-change group, while the comparison group’s telomeres shortened by close to 3% over the same period. The researchers described the finding as promising, but noted it needs to be confirmed in larger studies before broader conclusions can be drawn.
This was a small pilot study in men with prostate cancer, so it doesn’t tell us that lifestyle change can reverse ageing in the general population. What it does add to is a much broader body of evidence that diet, exercise, stress management and social connection are consistently associated with better long-term health outcomes.
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