Is It Possible To Slow Aging? Here’s How We Might Do It.
Published by Dr. Venn-Watson
Dr. Eric Venn-Watson’s Highlights
- The body ages in two ways: chronologically and biologically. Only biological aging happens in our cells. Altering biological aging is referred to as biohacking and can be done with activities like diet and exercise. Taking a longevity-enhancing supplement, like fatty15, strengthens your cells, reverses cellular aging, and improves long-term health.
Getting older seems inevitable, and to an extent, it certainly is. As each day passes, we become chronologically older, and there is simply no way to prevent the passage of time. The science of aging, or gerontology, has given us a glimpse into how to slow the aging process biologically.
While we might not be able to time-travel back into an earlier body, we can slow the progression of age as it occurs in the body. By understanding how biological aging works and what actions to take to slow it down, we have a shot at aging in reverse.
Understanding the Concept of Biological Aging
Biological age is the age of our cells, which make up every organ and tissue in our bodies. Fundamentally, if our cells are getting older, we are getting older. Older cells are prone to weakness and lead to age-related illnesses that we see predominantly in people over age 40, like type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, and cardiovascular disease.
Researchers have discovered that aging happens due to 12 specific mechanisms inside the cells. They’ve dubbed these mechanisms the 12 Hallmarks of Aging. These hallmarks include the following.
Genomic Instability
Sickness and environmental toxins can alter our DNA. These changes are referred to as genomic instability.
Telomere Attrition
At the end of each chromosome are telomeres, which get shorter each time they replicate. With each replication of DNA, the telomere gets shorter and shorter, and a small piece of DNA is extinguished.
Epigenetic Alterations
Changes we make to our DNA ourselves are epigenetic alterations. Changes like becoming pregnant, switching to a vegan diet, or even exercising can impact your DNA.
Loss of Proteostasis
Proteins inside our cells need to get to the organelles within our cells to support them. When they can’t, cells lose function. This process is called loss of proteostasis.
Deregulated Nutrient Sensing
When cells can no longer sense that they need nutrients, they can no longer pick up the nutrients they need. Possibly the most classic example of this is insulin resistance, which can lead to type 2 diabetes.
Mitochondrial Dysfunction
The batteries of our cells lose their ability to perform as strongly over time. They begin to produce less adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is cellular energy, and produce more reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are toxic to cells.
Cellular Senescence
The production of “zombie” cells in the body refers to cellular senescence. This phenomenon happens when cells stop functioning but do not die as they should. The presence of senescent cells creates an inflammatory environment and can lead to chronic inflammation in the body.
Stem Cell Exhaustion
The cells the body can use to repair any damaged tissue are referred to as stem cells. Over time, your stem cells lose their superpowers, leading to a condition called stem cell exhaustion.
Altered Intercellular Communication
Cells need to communicate and signal one another for proper function. When they lose that ability, our bodies lose proper balance of many functionsl ike mood, appetite, sleep, metabolism, and immunity.
Disabled Macroautophagy
Autophagy is the process by which your cells recycle their old parts into new ones. When this process ceases, cells become congested with toxic parts and lose function. Studies link disabled macroautophagy with a decreased lifespan.
Chronic Inflammation
Low-level inflammation is a malfunction of the immune system that causes inflammatory cytokines to remain present in the body long after an injury or illness has healed. Chronic inflammation is thought to underlie numerous illnesses, like cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
Dysbiosis
Dysbiosis refers to a specific change in the gut microbiome that scientists believe may impact the body’s ability to remain in a state of homeostasis. The gut microbiome influences many bodily functions and even communicates with the brain.
When these 12 markers are present in the cells, aging begins to accelerate. Thus, to pump the brakes on the aging process, we need to find ways to specifically target these processes and slow them down.
How To Slow Biological Aging
Slowing your biological age is a part of “biohacking.” Biohacking is a term used to describe ways people manually manipulate their biology with the goal of improving their long-term health.
A large portion of biohacking focuses on easy, actionable ways that the everyday person can biohack their body and cause it to become healthier and age more slowly. There are numerous ways to accomplish this.
A quick Google search will show you thousands of products and “hacks” that claim to keep you more youthful. With our knowledge of how aging happens, we need to be able to stack these methods and products up against the 12 Hallmarks of Aging and find out if they can address them and, if so, how well they do so.
Let’s cover some of the most common biohacks available.
1. Diet
When you think of a diet, you probably think of avoiding certain foods and eating more of others. In reality, diet is not what you do to lose weight but what you do to sustain the health of your body.
Your body gets the nutrients it needs from the foods you eat. While it is true that decreasing your caloric intake may help support weight loss goals, manipulating your diet through tools like intermittent fasting may target some of the hallmarks of aging.
Intermittent fasting may help target cellular autophagy and nutrient sensing. When the cells do not recognize nutrients are present, two things happen: nutrient sensing switches on, and autophagy begins. Targeting two of the hallmarks of aging with one simple action may help lengthen your lifespan.
2. Exercise
If you could pick one biohack that targeted all 12 hallmarks of aging, exercise would be the best choice. Exercise targets each specific hallmark in a unique way, making it one of the best ways you can support your body’s ability to slow down biological aging.
Not to mention, it comes with other incredible side effects, like help with weight loss and maintenance, mood enhancement, and muscle and bone health.
3. Prioritize Sleep
Sleep is when your body restores and rejuvenates. Sleep targets mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, genomic instability, telomere attrition, and epigenetic alterations. Disturbances in sleep patterns result in an increase in the accumulation of cellular damage and an acceleration in aging.
4. Manage Your Stress
We know that stress is, well, stressful, but it’s taking more of a detrimental toll on your health than you may realize. Chronic stress is linked to cellular senescence, chronic inflammation, telomere shortening, epigenetic changes, and genomic instability. Finding ways to manage stress may include taking a yoga class, learning to meditate, or offloading some of the activities on your schedule.
Elevate your cells. Elevate your self.
Buy Now5. Take a Longevity Supplement
Fatty15 is the first and only supplement that contains the pure, vegan-friendly, sustainable version of C15:0, an essential nutrient also known as the “The Longevity Nutrient.” C15:0, also known as Pentadecanoic acid, was discovered by researchers helping Navy dolphins live healthier for longer.
The protective benefits that this nutrient provided for the dolphins is now available to humans through a simple once-a-day supplement.
Understanding C15:0
C15:0 is an odd-chain, saturated fatty acid that more than 100 peer-reviewed papers support as an essential nutrient with many long-term health benefits. Essential means our bodies need it to thrive but cannot readily make it on their own. We have to get essential vitamins and nutrients from our diet or supplements.
Why Is It Essential?
C15:0 plays a vital role in numerous cellular processes, including processes that are needed to avoid the hallmarks of aging, including:
- Activating AMPK to help increase nutrient sensing, regulate total body homeostasis, and encourage cell cleanup (autophagy).
- Clearing damaged senescent cells.
- Claiming and reducing levels of proinflammatory cytokines.
- Keeping cell membranes strong.
- Restoring mitochondrial function and reducing ROS output.
- Activating PPARɑ and PPARẟ receptors. By activating these receptors, C15:0 has been shown in peer-reviewed studies to support metabolic, immune, heart, and liver health in relevant models. These receptors also help to improve mood and deepen sleep.
- Improved gut health.
C15:0 is also linked to a reduction in LDL cholesterol and improved liver enzymes. C15:0 has been found to be so essential for our health that if we don’t get enough of it, we can develop a newly discovered deficiency syndrome.
Cellular Fragility Syndrome
Cellular Fragility Syndrome is the name of the C15:0 deficiency syndrome. When circulating levels of C15:0 are too low, cells become fragile and susceptible to early breakdown and cell death. Cellular Fragility Syndrome has been linked to a particular type of cell death called ferroptosis. Ferroptosis underlies accelerated aging, NAFLD, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
The optimum levels of C15:0 fall between 0.2% and 0.4% of a person’s total fatty acid count. The good news is that it is easy to increase your levels of C15:0 and fix Cellular Fragility Syndrome. This can be accomplished by increasing your dietary intake of C15:0 or by taking a pure C15:0 supplement.
Why Fatty15?
There are a few reasons why taking a pure C15:0 dietary supplement like fatty15 is a good option. C15:0 is only found in trace amounts in full-fat dairy products like whole milk and full-fat butter and in some fish. To get enough of it, you’d have to significantly increase your whole dairy consumption, which may not be ideal for a few reasons:
- Whole-fat dairy is full of calories and sugar (from lactose). If you are attempting to maintain a healthy weight (or lose weight), consuming more whole milk and butter may not fit into your plan.
- Absorption is an issue. In whole milk and other dairy products, C15:0 is attached to triglycerides that must be broken down before the body can use the C15:0, making the process more taxing on the gut and less efficient overall.
- It isn’t vegan-friendly. Vegans and people who choose to avoid animal or dairy products won’t be able to get C15:0 from their diets. Plant-based milk is completely void of C15:0.
- It’s not mixed with “bad” fat. Not all fat is bad, but not all fat is good. Whole milk contains the good C15:0 you need, but it contains much more unhealthy, even-chain fat you don’t.
Fatty15 provides a simple solution that gives you everything you need and nothing you don’t to increase your essential C15:0 levels. It is the science-backed, readily absorbable, sustainably produced, award-winning, patented, and pure C15:0 supplement. And it doesn’t involve cows or calories.
Live Longer
No one can go back in time but you can slow time inside your cells. Strengthening your cells and targeting the 12 Hallmarks of Aging is a good place to start your cellular health journey. Taking fatty15 is an easy way to reverse aging at the cellular level and improve your long-term health.
Sources:
Hallmarks of aging: An expanding universe | PubMed
The gut microbiome as a modulator of healthy ageing | Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Aging Hallmarks: The Benefits of Physical Exercise | PMC
Eric Venn-Watson M.D.
CEO, Co-Founder
Senior Scientist, Co-Founder
Eric is a physician, U.S. Navy veteran, and Co-founder and COO of Seraphina Therapeutics. Eric served over 25 years as a Navy and Marine Corps physician, working with the special forces community to improve their health and fitness. Seraphina Therapeutics is a health and wellness company dedicated to advancing global health through the discovery of essential fatty acids and micronutrient therapeutics.
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