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Comment by Rch_East | Hacker News Reader

How do we slow our personal telomere shortening rate?

Other than being born with the right genes? Moderate exercise, like 30 min. of cardio 3 times a week, may help increase telomere length just as much as marathon running. Omega 3 and most things associated with a good diet also correlate with longer telomeres. A study showed that processed meat (like bologna with nitrate) has a negative effect on telomeres. Go figure.

There is a very strong negative association between chronic stress and telomeres. The worse the stress is and the longer the episode, the more your telomeres are impaired. If a woman is chronically stressed or had low emotional support in childhood, her kids may get shorter telomeres in utero. Social isolation also seems to be terrible for telomere length.

Disclaimer: Telomeres are a relatively new area of interest. Studies showing the above haven’t been replicated enough to be comfortably stated as fact. Of course, telling correlation from causation is difficult.

You can actually increase your telomeres? Is there a way to get them measured accurately?

Yes there are several companies that do this. TeloYears is one. They use a blood sample to index your telomere length (actual length) against other people your age (expected length). One of the outputs is a percentile rank for cellular age. While this can be useful information, there are a couple issues. One is that you can’t reliably predict expected lifespan simply using telomere length. The other is that it is over $100. You already know if you’re healthy and have good genes. I guess it could be used for benchmarking to see whether your telomeres are on the right track.

Meditation.

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