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A preliminary study in The Lancet Oncology indicated that comprehensive lifestyle changes could potentially increase the length of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that control cell ageing.
Professor Paul Pharoah, Professor of Cancer Epidemiology, University of Cambridge, said:
“The sample size in this study is extremely small and so we cannot be sure the findings are robust.
“We already knew that telomere length is associated with health, and that certain lifestyles are healthier than others. What this new study suggests is that having a healthier lifestyle may help prevent telomeres shortening over time, and might even help lengthen them, but because this is such a small study (and only done in a group of men with prostate cancer) we can be neither sure of the effect nor confident that it will apply in other groups of people.”
Dr Tom Vulliamy, Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biology, QMUL, said:
“It is really important to highlight that this is a small pilot study. Also, the significance of the effect of these lifestyle changes on telomere length is actually quite borderline, with only 2 or 3 men showing any improvement. Given this, I’m definitely going to wait to see whether this can be replicated on a larger scale and with more sizeable effects before I get excited.”
Dr Lynne Cox, Lecturer in Biochemistry, University of Oxford, said:
“Cell ageing occurs by a process called replicative senescence where the ends of chromosomes (called telomeres) shorten every time a cell divides, providing a counting mechanism for cell division. Senescence is a natural anti-cancer strategy to prevent old, and presumably damaged, cells from dividing, but senescent cells have adverse effects on surrounding tissues which are thought to contribute to ageing. The association between short telomeres, stress and poor health is well documented in the literature. This new study suggests that reducing stress, improving diet and increasing exercise have the effect of not only preventing telomere loss but also of leading to small but significant increases in telomere length, as measured in circulating white blood cells. The greater the adherence to the healthy lifestyle changes, the greater the increase in telomere length measured; it is perhaps too soon to judge whether this increase in telomere length will correlate with increased longevity or healthspan. There are two things to bear in mind here: firstly, short telomeres that occur as result of chronic stress are highly associated with poor health, and studies in mice have shown improved tissue health when telomeres are restored experimentally. Secondly, by contrast, globally increasing telomere length in cancer-prone mice actually predisposes to more aggressive cancers. The small increases in telomere length in this new human study are more likely to correlate with improved health than cancer risk, though it is too early to be definite.
“The authors are very careful to point out that their samples sizes are small and that all the men they studied had cancer so they cannot draw conclusions about the effect of similar lifestyle changes for telomere length and ageing in healthy people. In addition, similar studies in other countries did not find significant changes, possibly because initial lifestyle conditions vary widely. Overall, though, the findings of this paper that changes in lifestyle can have a positive effect on markers of ageing support the calls for adoption of and adherence to healthier lifestyles.”
‘Effect of comprehensive lifestyle changes on telomerase activity and telomere length in men with biopsy-proven low-risk prostate cancer: 5-year follow-up of a descriptive pilot study’ by Dean Ornish et al. will be published in Lancet Oncology on Tuesday 16 September 2013.