Study Links Diet & Lifestyle to Cellular Aging

We all know that eating the right foods and getting regular exercise is good for us, even if we don't always do it. Sort of like flossing. But a recent study by researchers at the University of California San Francisco might give you the bit of additional motivation you need.

The study concluded that relatively small changes to diet and lifestyle can have a major effect on aging down to the cellular level. And perhaps can not only slow it, but even reverse it. Our body's ability to produce a steady supply of healthy new cells to replace those that wear out is perhaps the primary factor in determining how quickly we age. Not in a chronological sense, of course, but in a biological one.

 “So often people think ‘Oh, I have bad genes, there’s nothing I can do about it,’” said Dean Ornish, MD, study author and a clinical professor of medicine at UCSF, said in a statement. “But these findings indicate that telomeres may lengthen to the degree that people change how they live. Research indicates that longer telomeres are associated with fewer illnesses and longer life.”

That seems like quite a bonus for doing a few things you really should be doing anyway.