In this morning’s New York Times, they wrote about how exercise was proven to keep you younger. The proxy they use for being younger is telomere length – which as a leading proponent of this theory, I support.  This must be a sign that telomere as the mechanism of aging is become a genuine meme.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/28/does-exercise-slow-the-aging-process/?emc=eta1&_r=0

And there were clear associations. For every point someone gained from any type of exercise, his or her risks of having unusually short telomeres declined significantly.

Specifically, someone who participated in a single activity, earning them a 1, was about 3 percent less likely to have very short telomeres than someone who didn’t exercise at all.

That risk declined more substantially if someone exercised more. People who reported two types of exercise were 24 percent less likely to have short telomeres; three types of exercise were 29 percent less likely; and those who had participated in all four types of activities were 59 percent less likely to have very short telomeres.

Here is the study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25970659

A few observations:  the scientists and journalist assume that telomere length is a proxy for aging. We all know that exercising keeps you younger.  Now can we call just get to the point where we understand that telomere health is the mechanism of all that is good or bad in our stem cells and health? As I like to say, there is only one disease with many faces and that the cure, telomerase, is always working to reverse aging- it just needs help from us.

If you would like to explore my ideas on exercise and telomere length, please check out my 11th podcast on the subject.