Super Brain (27 page)

How do we prevent that one critical system from bringing down everything else? You would have to pay attention to the whole body for a lifetime. Prediction is extremely difficult. Several factors prevent anyone from seeing in advance where the aging process will ultimately lead.

Uncertainty 1: Aging is very slow
.

It begins around age thirty and progresses at roughly 1 percent a year. This slowness prevents us from actually observing a cell as it ages. We see the effects only after years have passed. Nor are these effects uniform. For every aspect of physical and mental deterioration, some people actually get better with age. By getting enough exercise, they may become stronger than they were when they were young. For a small, fortunate few, at age ninety, memory can improve rather than decline. Aging is like a ragged army, in which some cells advance ahead of others, but the whole army moves at a snail’s pace and with great stealth.

Uncertainty 2: Aging is unique

Everyone ages differently. Identical twins who are born with the same DNA will have completely different genetic profiles at age seventy. Their chromosomes won’t have changed, but decades of life experience will have caused the activity of their genes to be switched on and off in a unique pattern. The regulation of each cell, minute by minute for thousands of days, makes their bodies age in unpredictable ways. In general, we are genetic duplicates of one another at the moment of birth but entirely one of a kind at the moment of death.

Uncertainty 3: Aging is invisible

The aspects of growing old that you see in the mirror—gray hair, wrinkles, sagging skin, and so on—indicate that something is going on at the cellular level. But cells are immensely complicated, undergoing thousands of chemical reactions per second. These reactions are fixed and automatic. Bonding occurs among various molecules, dependent on the atomic properties of the elements that make up the body, principally the big six—carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and sulfur. If these atoms are shaken up in a beaker, they will perform automatic reactions in a few thousandths of a second.
On its own, phosphorous is so volatile that in a fiery collision with oxygen, it will explode. But over billions of years, living organisms developed incredibly intricate combinations that prevent such crude interactions. The phosphorous in your cells isn’t explosive. It enters into an organic chemical known as ATP, adenosine triphosphate, a key component in binding enzymes and transferring energy.

A biologist could spend a lifetime studying how just this one complex molecule operates inside a cell, yet the controller of each reaction remains unseen and unknown. As long as a cell is functioning smoothly, no one needs to see the controller. A kind of chemical intelligence is clearly at work, and it’s enough to say that DNA, because it contains the code of life, is the beginning and the end of everything that goes on inside a cell. But thanks to aging, cells stop functioning with complete efficiency, and then the invisible element raises its head. Atoms do not have the capacity to go wrong, but cells do. Why and how is not predictable—it is traceable only after a wrong turn has been taken.

All these uncertainties lead to a single conclusion. There is no alternative to paying attention to your whole body for your lifetime. But this is the very thing that people find almost impossible to do. Our lives are full of contrasts, and we are addicted to its ups and downs. Walking the straight and narrow sounds boring. It implies a kind of stifling Puritanism, where self-denial is the rule and pleasure the exception. The real challenge, as we see it, is to make lifetime well-being so desirable that it stops being a penance.

How to begin? No matter which approach you take to anti-aging, your brain is involved. No cell in the body is an island—all are receiving an unbroken stream of messages from the central nervous system. Certain messages are good for cells, and others are bad. Eating a cheeseburger every day sends one kind of message; eating steamed broccoli sends another. Being happily married sends a different message from being lonely and isolated. Clearly you want to send messages to tell every cell not to age. Therein lies the promise.
If you can maximize the positive messages and minimize the negative ones, anti-aging becomes a real possibility.

It turns out that anti-aging is a gigantic feedback loop that lasts a lifetime. The term
feedback loop
keeps returning in this book because science is discovering more and more about how these loops work. In 2010 an exciting joint study from the University of California at Davis and UC San Francisco revealed that meditation leads to an increase in a crucial enzyme called telomerase. At the end of every chromosome is a repetitive chemical structure called a telomere, which acts like the period at the end of a sentence—it closes off the chromosome’s DNA and helps to keep it intact. In recent years the fraying of telomeres has been connected to the breakdown of the body as it ages. Due to imperfect cell division, telomeres get shorter, and the risk emerges that stress will degrade a cell’s genetic code. Having healthy telomeres seems to be important, and therefore it’s good news that meditation can increase the enzyme that replenishes telomeres, telomerase.

This research sounds highly technical, mainly of interest to cell biologists. But the UC study went a step further and showed that the psychological benefits of meditation are linked to telomerase. High telomerase levels, which also seem to be supported by exercise and a healthy diet, are part of a feedback loop that results, surprisingly enough, in a sense of personal well-being and the ability to cope with stress. This one finding helps to cement the most basic tenet of mind-body medicine: that every cell is eavesdropping on the brain. A kidney cell doesn’t think in words; it doesn’t say to itself,
I’ve had a horrible day at work. The stress is killing me
. But it is participating wordlessly in that thought. Meditation brings a sense of well-being to the mind, while silently spreading the same feeling, via a chemical like telomerase, to your DNA. Nothing is excluded from the feedback loop.

The mind-body connection is real, and choices make a difference. With those two facts in place, the anti-aging brain holds untold promise.

Prevention and Risks

Without knowing why we age, medicine has taken the approach that aging is like a disease. Germs cause cellular damage, and so does growing old. It’s sensible to focus on keeping your body healthy and functioning. The physical side of anti-aging is similar to prevention programs for any lifestyle disorder. Let’s review the main points. They will seem familiar after decades of public health campaigns—yet they are still a vital part of your physical well-being.

HOW TO REDUCE THE RISKS OF AGING

Eat a balanced diet, cutting back fats, sugar, and processed foods. The preferred diet is Mediterranean: olive oil instead of butter, fish (or soy-based sources of protein) instead of red meat, whole grains, legumes, mixed nuts, fresh fruits, and whole vegetables to provide plenty of fiber.

Avoid overeating.

Exercise moderately for at least one hour three times a week.

Don’t smoke.

Drink alcohol, preferably red wine, in moderation, if at all.

Wear a seat belt.

Take steps to prevent household accidents (from slippery floors, steep stairs, fire hazards, icy sidewalks, etc.).

Get a good night’s sleep. It may also be helpful as you grow older to take an afternoon nap.

Keep regular habits.

In terms of prevention, the physical side of anti-aging keeps being refined. Take the issue of obesity, which has now reached epidemic proportions in America and Western Europe. Being overweight has long been recognized as a risk factor for many disorders, including heart disease, hypertension, and Type 2 diabetes. But now a specific kind of fat, belly fat, is being targeted as the most damaging kind. Fat isn’t inert like the fat in a stick of butter. It is constantly active, and belly fat sends out hormonal signals that are damaging to the body, as well as altering metabolic balance. Unfortunately, exercise alone will not get rid of belly fat. A general weight-loss and exercise program is needed; eating sufficient fiber also seems to help combat belly fat.

Given our wealth of refined knowledge, the real problem lies elsewhere, with compliance. Knowing what’s good for you and doing it are two different things. Exercise is a constant drumbeat in prevention advice, yet we are becoming an increasingly sedentary society. Fewer than 20 percent of adults get the amount of exercise recommended for good health; one out of every ten meals is eaten at McDonald’s, where the food is high in fat and sugar and almost absent fiber and whole vegetables.

Compliance is difficult when your brain is wired to make the wrong choices. Certain tastes, for example—especially salty, sweet, and sour—are so immediately attractive that we gravitate toward them. With repetition, these tastes become the ones we prefer. Given enough repetition, they become the tastes we reach for automatically, victimized by unconscious habit. (The snack-food industry has a term
—munch rhythm
—to describe the automatic way a person keeps putting popcorn, potato chips, or peanuts into his mouth without stopping until the bag is empty. This is the ultimate unconscious behavior, considered highly desirable among snack-food purveyors but disastrous for anyone’s diet.)

It’s futile for health experts to nag the public year after year to
change its ways and then expect compliance. It’s still less effective for you to nag yourself. The worse you feel about yourself, the more likely you are to drift into discouragement. Once you feel discouraged, two things happen. First, you grow numb, bored with fighting yourself. Second, you seek to palliate your discomfort, usually through distractions. You watch television or seek out quick fixes of enjoyment by eating salty snacks and sweets. In this way, the effort to do better ends up doing worse. If nagging actually worked, we’d be a nation of joggers elbowing each other to get at the organic produce section of the supermarket.

Aging is a very long process. A class in stress management, a few months of yoga, going vegetarian for a while—these are blips on the screen when it comes to aging’s slow creep. Clearly, to prevent aging, we have to crack the problem of noncompliance.

Conscious Lifestyle Choices

The secret to compliance isn’t exerting more willpower or beating yourself up for not being perfect. The secret is
changing without force
. Anything you force yourself to do will eventually fail. Anti-aging isn’t built in a day. Whatever you do now, you must keep doing for decades. So let’s stop thinking in terms of discipline and self-control. Some people are prevention saints—they consume only one tablespoon of total fat per day in their diet, because that’s the ideal amount for heart health. They ignore wind and rain and get in five hours of vigorous exercise a week. Saints are inspiring to the rest of us, but deep down they are also discouraging, because they remind us that we are a hundred miles from being saintly ourselves.

Change without force is certainly possible. To achieve it, you need to create a matrix for making better choices. By matrix, we simply mean your setup for daily living. Everyone has a matrix already. Some people’s matrices make positive choices much easier than do others. A cupboard that contains no snack foods would be
part of such a matrix. A house without a television or video games would be another, but if you are jogging every day because you have no entertainment at home, you aren’t being good to yourself. In the end, the physical side is secondary. A matrix is more substantial and sustainable. That’s why we surround ourselves with support for the behavior we like best.

The real secret is to live inside a matrix where the mind feels free to choose the right thing instead of feeling compelled to choose the wrong thing.

MATRIX FOR A POSITIVE LIFESTYLE

Have good friends.

Don’t isolate yourself.

Sustain a lifelong companionship with a spouse or partner.

Engage socially in worthwhile projects.

Be close with people who have a good lifestyle—habits are contagious.

Follow a purpose in life.

Leave time for play and relaxation.

Keep up satisfying sexual activity.

Address issues around anger.

Practice stress management.

Deal with the reactive mind’s harmful effects: When you have a negative reaction, stop, stand back, take a few deep breaths, and observe how you’re feeling.

We’ve already covered many of these items in our discussion of the ideal lifestyle for your brain, but the same ones have also been correlated with longevity. One thing that links them is very basic: success comes when people act together; failure tends to happen alone. Having a spouse or life partner who keeps an eye on your diet (“Haven’t you already eaten a cookie today? Have a carrot”) is better than wandering the supermarket aisles alone and impulsively grabbing a week’s worth of frozen dinners. A friend who goes to the gym with you three times a week gives you more incentive than all the promises you make to yourself as you watch
Sunday Night Football
. It’s important to establish your matrix early and keep it going. Studies have shown that losing a spouse suddenly leads to isolation, depression, higher risk for disease, and shortened life span. But if you have a social network beyond your spouse, you have a cushion against these baleful consequences.