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Wisdom Wednesday - Anti-aging strategies part 4 - Combatting 'Inflammaging' · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

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  Speaker 1: Here everyone, welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays, and
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  Speaker 1: welcome back to our series on the Wholemarks of Aging,
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  Speaker 1: with episode number four out of twelve. Now, today we're
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  Speaker 1: diving into something called inflamaging. That's a combination of the
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  Speaker 1: words inflammation and aging, and it's a turn that describes
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  Speaker 1: the chronic, low grade inflammation that develops as we age,
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  Speaker 1: and unlike acute inflammation, which helps the body fight infections
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  Speaker 1: and heal injuries, inflammaging is a silent, persistent immune activation
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  Speaker 1: that contributes to a wide range of age related diseases,
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  Speaker 1: including heart disease, diabetes, cancer, dementia, and frailty, which together
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  Speaker 1: kill the vast majority of people. Now this is pretty
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  Speaker 1: relevant for me because right now I am two weeks
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  Speaker 1: and two days post open heart surgery, and my body
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  Speaker 1: is full of inflammation. And in fact, my surgeon said
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  Speaker 1: they don't even measure CRP because they know there's just
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  Speaker 1: crazy amounts of inflammation going on in my body right now. Now,
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  Speaker 1: that is acute inflammation, because I've obviously been through something
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  Speaker 1: that's really traumatic for the body. But this is different.
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  Speaker 1: This is that slow, silent, persistent inflammation at a cellular level. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the good news is that lifestyle interventions, particularly exercise, diet,
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  Speaker 1: and some targeted supplements can reduce inflammaging and slow down
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  Speaker 1: the aging process. So let's break it down. Let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about what causes it, why it's harmful, and the most importantly,
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  Speaker 1: what we can do about it. So inflammation, as I
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  Speaker 1: said earlier, it's this long term activation of the immune system.
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  Speaker 1: So inflammation is a really important process in the body.
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  Speaker 1: If you get an injury, you get sick, or even
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  Speaker 1: if you've been training exercising, there is an inflammatory process
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  Speaker 1: that is a critical part of the healing process. And
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  Speaker 1: this is why we say, for instance, if you've just
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  Speaker 1: done resistance training, heavy resistance training, do not get in
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  Speaker 1: cold water afterwards, because what it does is it blunts
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  Speaker 1: the inflammatory process and it actually reduces your muscle gains
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  Speaker 1: because that inflammation is the first part of healing, right,
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  Speaker 1: So this is something that is critical for the body
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  Speaker 1: because it activates the immune system. But as we said
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  Speaker 1: earlier on, it's that long term activation of inflammation, that
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  Speaker 1: systemic cellular stuff that is really bad. And what we
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  Speaker 1: said to often see is it's characterized by increased levels
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  Speaker 1: of inflammatory markers. So you can get this done and
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  Speaker 1: things like see reactive protein interlooking six at TNF alpha.
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  Speaker 1: They are all inflammatory markers and Australia they use ASR
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  Speaker 1: as well. They say are inflammatory markers. You may see
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  Speaker 1: them on your blood tests, and so they are indicative
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  Speaker 1: of levels of inflammation going on. And then other things
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  Speaker 1: are dysregulation of the immune system. So when the immune
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  Speaker 1: system becomes dysregulator, that leads to a constant state of
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  Speaker 1: low grade inflammation. And then there's contribution from a whole
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  Speaker 1: heap of other sources, including a build up of celle debris,
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  Speaker 1: which we'll talk about, a build up of metabolic waste
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  Speaker 1: if you're not clearing that properly, and then changes in
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  Speaker 1: your gut microbiota, your gut microbiome, which we are seeing
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  Speaker 1: is happening more and more these days as we eat
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  Speaker 1: a shit diet of ultra processed foods, and this is
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  Speaker 1: one of the reasons, for example, why we're seeing a
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  Speaker 1: lot of younger people and now developing biol cancer and
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  Speaker 1: because of the damage to the gut microbiome and associated
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  Speaker 1: inflammation and all of this. But anyway, let's get back
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  Speaker 1: to the topic at hand. Essentially, inflammating is your immune
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  Speaker 1: system being stuck in this slow burning fire and it
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  Speaker 1: basically damages our healthy sales and tissues over time. And
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  Speaker 1: that's a really nice way to think of it. Is
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  Speaker 1: just that you've just got this low grade fire going
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  Speaker 1: on in your body and people can actually feel it.
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  Speaker 1: You feel if you've got inflammation, you feel shit house,
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  Speaker 1: I can tell you that, right, Ni. It's driven by
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  Speaker 1: a mix of genetic, metabolic, and environmental factors. So let's
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  Speaker 1: talk about some of the major contributors. I'm not going
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  Speaker 1: to go through an exhaustive liscas here all day, but
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  Speaker 1: let's talk about the major one. So the first one
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  Speaker 1: is our immune system degeneration, right, and this is where
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  Speaker 1: you see the different hallmarks of auging, sort of cross
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  Speaker 1: pollinating if you like. And we're going to talk about
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  Speaker 1: the immune system in depth. But as we it's our
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  Speaker 1: innate immune system starts to become a bit more overactive,
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  Speaker 1: while our adaptive immune system, which helps us to find
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  Speaker 1: infection that weakens. And this imbalance of the innate immune
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  Speaker 1: system and the adaptive immune system can lead to chronic
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  Speaker 1: inflammation without a clear cause. The next major contributor is
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  Speaker 1: their gut microbiota changes. And when we know now unless
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  Speaker 1: you've been living under a rock, you'll have heard that
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  Speaker 1: your gut bacteria plays a huge role in your health,
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  Speaker 1: both physical and mental health. And we know that they
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  Speaker 1: got back to your places a huge role in inflammation,
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  Speaker 1: and as we age, and particularly as we have a
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  Speaker 1: shit diet and we are stressed, that changes the balance
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  Speaker 1: of so called good and bad bacteria in your gut,
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  Speaker 1: and that leads to things such as increased gut permeability.
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  Speaker 1: You may have heard of this as leaky gut. And
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  Speaker 1: what happens is when your gut is more permeable, it
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  Speaker 1: allows bacterial toxins and even little particles of food to
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  Speaker 1: enter into the bloodstream and cause an immune response and
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  Speaker 1: an inflammatory response. And the other thing that happens as
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  Speaker 1: well is that balance shifts with good and bad bacteria,
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  Speaker 1: is that higher levels of inflammatory compounds are released by
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  Speaker 1: these inverticom as bad microbiome or bio bad microbiota, so
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  Speaker 1: they can either directly cause inflammation or through that permeability
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  Speaker 1: of the gut wall, that can cause inflammation at that
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  Speaker 1: systemic level. And then the next thing that contributes is
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  Speaker 1: what we call cellular sinescence. And I've talked about this
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  Speaker 1: before they're kind of old damage cells that refuse to die.
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  Speaker 1: I call them zombie cells. If you are a fan
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  Speaker 1: of Game of Thones, you'll know about the white walkers.
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  Speaker 1: So let's think of them as those. Because when these
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  Speaker 1: cells that don't die properly they become sinescent, they actually
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  Speaker 1: secrete inflammatory molecules that impact their cells and fuel chronic
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  Speaker 1: inflammation as well. Right, So that gives us a clear
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  Speaker 1: later on about clearing those old cells is really really important.
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  Speaker 1: And then the other thing is nutrient overload and metaflammation. Right.
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  Speaker 1: So metaflammation is a term that's been used, but basically
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  Speaker 1: inflammation of your metabolism driven by poor nutrition. So we
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  Speaker 1: know that excessive calorie intake, and especially for multiprocessed foods, right,
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  Speaker 1: And even for multiprocess foods it doesn't need to be excessive.
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  Speaker 1: But we are in the West, we are overnourished. We
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  Speaker 1: eat too many calories, but we are over which are
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  Speaker 1: We're overfed but undernourished. We eat too many calories, but
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  Speaker 1: they're empty calories. And not only the empty calories, but
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  Speaker 1: the stuff for multiprocessed foods we know can trigger metaflammation.
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  Speaker 1: And this is a type of chronic inflammation of your
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  Speaker 1: metabolic processes caused by a combination of overnutrition, too much
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  Speaker 1: calories and poor nutrition, especially for multiprocessed foods. And we know,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, that excessive sugar and refined carbohydrates which are
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  Speaker 1: persistent everywhere, particularly in ultraprocessed foods, and they cause the
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  Speaker 1: activation of age glycation end products. We call those ages.
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  Speaker 1: Those age glyclationing end products actually drive systemic inflammation. So
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  Speaker 1: this metaflammation and inflammating. They share the same harmful mechanisms
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  Speaker 1: which include oxidative stress and immune system over activation. So
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  Speaker 1: diet is hugely, hugely important here. The next thing is
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  Speaker 1: mitochondrial dysfunction. So as are mitochondria, which you have heard
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  Speaker 1: me talk about the power houses of the cells. Now
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  Speaker 1: not only are they the par house, not only do
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  Speaker 1: they create energy, we now know that your mitochondria do
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  Speaker 1: so much more than just create energy. And when you
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  Speaker 1: get damage mitochondria, it contributes to a shit ton of
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  Speaker 1: chronic diseases. And again this is one of the major
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  Speaker 1: hallmarks of aging. So we're not going to go too
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  Speaker 1: deep into this, but basically, as do mitochondria aids, they
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  Speaker 1: produce more reactive oxygen species, and that triggers inflammation at
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  Speaker 1: a cellular level. And then the last major thing that
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  Speaker 1: we tend to do in our environment or lifestyle factors
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  Speaker 1: is disrupting our circadian rhythms. So many of your metabolic
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  Speaker 1: processes run off circadian cycles. And almost every month I'm
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  Speaker 1: reading another research paper about what happens in the body
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  Speaker 1: and the brain when you mess with your circadian cycles.
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  Speaker 1: So changing your sleep time, changing your waketime, being aroused
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  Speaker 1: at night, and I mean aroused, I mean psychologically aroused,
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  Speaker 1: and bescrolling on social media, doing work, watching Netflix, having
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  Speaker 1: that bright light exposure at night. All of this disrupts
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  Speaker 1: your circadian rhythms and that can cause this regulated immune
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  Speaker 1: function and increased inflammation. Now, there's certain other things such
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  Speaker 1: as pollution and excessive sun exposure that can contribute to inflammation,
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  Speaker 1: but those six things would be the major things that
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  Speaker 1: are exposing it, oh as well as pollution and x
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  Speaker 1: explun exposure. It's just the amount of toxic shit that
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  Speaker 1: we rub on our bodies and expose ourselves to the environment.
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  Speaker 1: And I suspect that we're going to see more of
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  Speaker 1: these microplastics and nanoplastics actually contribute to inflammation, so we
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  Speaker 1: have become a plastic society. And actually research I read
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  Speaker 1: just last week shows that they're now significant up to
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  Speaker 1: a spoonful of micro and nanoplastics in the human brain.
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  Speaker 1: We're finding them in placentas. Almost every placenta tested in
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  Speaker 1: the United States has got micro nanoplastics, and I think
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  Speaker 1: that's a contribution to this which we will see, I
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  Speaker 1: think rolling out down the track. Now that's all the
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  Speaker 1: bad stuff. Let's talk about what we can do. So firstly, exercise.
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  Speaker 1: Exercise is one of the most effective ways to combat
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  Speaker 1: chronic inflammation, and here's how it does it. Exercise releases
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  Speaker 1: these milkinds. You've heard me talk about marakinds before, and
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  Speaker 1: a number of those mayakinds are anti inflammatory in nature, right,
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  Speaker 1: And what exercise does, as well as releasing anti inflammatory
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  Speaker 1: cider kinds such as interlocontan, it actually lowers the level
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  Speaker 1: of inflammatory sider kinds in our body, things like interluk
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  Speaker 1: in six, ser reactive protein and tumorindo crosis factor alpha.
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  Speaker 1: They all, as I mentioned earlier at the start, they
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  Speaker 1: all contribute to inflammation, and exercise directly reduces them as
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  Speaker 1: well as increases the activity of anti inflammatory marakinds side
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  Speaker 1: accounts such as interlo content. The next thing that exercise
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  Speaker 1: does is it enhances autopogy, this cellular cleanup, particularly in
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  Speaker 1: muscle cells. So regular exercise, and here's the little thing,
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  Speaker 1: particularly if you exercise in the morning in a fasted state,
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  Speaker 1: that increases autopogy within the muscle cells. So think of
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  Speaker 1: autoplogy as this cellular cleanup, so particularly when we're fasted,
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  Speaker 1: and an way exercise and what happens is in those
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  Speaker 1: muscle cells, it's just there's little enzymes that run around
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  Speaker 1: and remove damage proteins and cellular waste and actually recycle
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  Speaker 1: them to produce energy and prevents the build up of
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  Speaker 1: these inflammation causing debris, particularly in the muscle cells. And
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  Speaker 1: the next thing that exercise does is it improves your
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  Speaker 1: mitochondrial function. We know that exercise boosts your mitochondrial efficiency.
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  Speaker 1: It makes your mitochondria work better, that's therefore reducing oxidative
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  Speaker 1: stress and inflammation. And we know that in particular, high
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  Speaker 1: intensity interval training induces what's called mitochondrial biogenesis. Brands spanking
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  Speaker 1: new batteries for your sales or mitochondria. And then the
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  Speaker 1: next thing and that exercise does is actually a powerful
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  Speaker 1: regular of the gut microbiome. Physical activity. Regular physical activity
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  Speaker 1: promotes a healthier gut microbiome, reducing the harmful bacteria and
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  Speaker 1: then reducing the amount of inflammation. And in terms of
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  Speaker 1: the exercise, it's it's a mix. And we know that
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  Speaker 1: aerobic exercise is useful for all those things, as is
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  Speaker 1: a high intense of the interval training, as is strength training.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm a big fan of having a mix of
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  Speaker 1: those three things. Your standard cardio steady state, particularly zone
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  Speaker 1: two stuff where you can do for long periods of
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  Speaker 1: time and you can talk but you can't sing. Then
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  Speaker 1: you got to lift heavy shit two or three times
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  Speaker 1: a week at a minimum that helps reduce inflammation and
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  Speaker 1: build resilience. And then a few sessions of high intensity
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  Speaker 1: interval training is very very powerful at lowering inflammation. Now,
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  Speaker 1: some other ways that we can reduce inflammation, and I
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  Speaker 1: think the other big one is your diet really is
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  Speaker 1: and this is there's a two pound approach here. Number
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  Speaker 1: one is reducing the amount of shit that we eat.
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  Speaker 1: And in Australia and in New Zealand and the United States,
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  Speaker 1: United Kingdom and Canada. More than fifty percent of all
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  Speaker 1: calories consumed are ultra process crap. Right. This is the
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  Speaker 1: stuff that is on the supermarket chanels that has never
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  Speaker 1: been alive. Right, And a lot of it masquerades is
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  Speaker 1: healthy foods such as breakfast cereals and protein bars and
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  Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. But it has a lot
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  Speaker 1: of these compounds in it that are inflammatory. So reducing
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  Speaker 1: the amount of ultra processed foods in your diet is
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  Speaker 1: really key. And then following an anti inflammatory diet. And look,
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  Speaker 1: the best diet for controlling inflammation that the research is
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  Speaker 1: the Mediterranean diet. Right. It's high amiga three fatty acids,
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  Speaker 1: it's high in polyphenols, high in fiber rich food and
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  Speaker 1: healthy fats. Right, So it's really about eating lots of
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  Speaker 1: those things, avoiding your ultra processed foods as much as possible,
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  Speaker 1: added sugars, transfats, all of those things, deep fried foods,
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  Speaker 1: that sort of stuff, and just eating as much a
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  Speaker 1: Following closely a Mediterranean diet I think is definitely the
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  Speaker 1: way to go in terms of inflammation. Then sleep, sleep
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  Speaker 1: is really really critical. As I say, lack of sleep
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  Speaker 1: increases inflammatory markers the entire next day, as well as
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  Speaker 1: stress hormones which then play into inflammation. And so it's
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  Speaker 1: following those good sleep hygiene practices that I've talked about
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  Speaker 1: ad nauseum and then about managing stress because chronic stress
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  Speaker 1: elevates cortisol, and cortisol chronically elevated corso promotes inflammation. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So making sure that you're exercising takes in lots of
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  Speaker 1: brain doing deep breathing, exercise, meditation, time and nature, all
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  Speaker 1: of those things. And then the last thing I think
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  Speaker 1: we can do is anti inflammatory supplements. Now, there are
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  Speaker 1: a whole host of different supplements that you can take,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm going to talk about four for me, the
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  Speaker 1: big four, and there the four that I'm taking right
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  Speaker 1: now because my body is full of inflammation now, as
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  Speaker 1: I said, mine is because of a traumatic operation. But
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  Speaker 1: a Mega three fatty acids. I think you're bunkers if
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  Speaker 1: you're not taking a Mega three fatty acids. And if
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  Speaker 1: you're vegan, you can take stuff from algae. But research
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  Speaker 1: is showing more and more the power of Amiga three
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  Speaker 1: is not just to combat inflammation, but to extend health
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  Speaker 1: span and lifespan and make sure you're buying a good
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: quality don't buy the stuff from the local chemist. Spend
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: your money, get good quality stuff that has actually been
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  Speaker 1: screened by IFOSS that screens for thousands of different chemicals.
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  Speaker 1: Then the next thing is circumin, which is the active
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  Speaker 1: ingredient in turmeric. Now it's really interesting. It has potent
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  Speaker 1: anti inflammatory effects that blocks key inflammatory pathways and one
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  Speaker 1: of the reasons why you see such low incidents of
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  Speaker 1: Alzheimer's in India even though there's a lot of obesity
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  Speaker 1: and diabetes, and they think it's the anti inflammatory effects
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  Speaker 1: of curcumin, which is found in turmeric, which they found
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  Speaker 1: in the curries. Socuin, particularly mixed with black peppering that
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  Speaker 1: helps it get into the cells, is really useful. Another
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  Speaker 1: supplement it's big on my list at the minute is glinac.
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  Speaker 1: That's a combination of the amino acid glycine and the
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  Speaker 1: powerful antioxidant an acetyl systing. What they do together has
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  Speaker 1: been shown to boost glutathione in the body, that is
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  Speaker 1: the major element that reduces oxidative stress and combats inflammation.
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  Speaker 1: And research shows that binac supplementation in mice reduces oxidative stress,
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  Speaker 1: reduces inflammation, and extends lifespan, and research in humans shows
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  Speaker 1: that it reduces oxieative stress and reduces inflammation the same
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  Speaker 1: processes that happen in the mouse. We obviously haven't done
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  Speaker 1: the lifespan studies because that's hard to do in humans.
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  Speaker 1: But for me, glinac is right at the top of
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  Speaker 1: my list. And the last one of the big forward
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  Speaker 1: that I'm going to talk about is vinamin D. Vinamin D.
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  Speaker 1: You've heard me talk about it before. It is so
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  Speaker 1: important in so many processes in the body. It regularly
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  Speaker 1: it's more than three hundred genes. It supports your immune system,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: and it reduces inflammation. So they for me, are the
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: big foward that are absolutely critical. So now you have
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: it ways to reduce your exposure to inflammation, and then
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: things that we can do to offset our drive anti
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: inflammation in the body. And now researchers are actually exploring
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  Speaker 1: biomarkers that can assess inflammation levels, biological age. You know,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: they're looking at DNA methylation. Now I've talked about that before,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: those changes in gene expression are linked to aging. They're
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: looking now at things called glycomics. These are sugar modifications
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and proteins that indicate immune system status, and then they're
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: looking at things like metabolomics and lipid omix. These are
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  Speaker 1: measures of metabolic health and inflammatory status. So there's a
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  Speaker 1: whole heap of research in this area. But just in
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  Speaker 1: terms of closing thoughts here, inflammating it massively accelerates our
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  Speaker 1: aging and increases our disease risk, but it is not inevitable,
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  Speaker 1: and it's especially having good regular exercise and having a
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  Speaker 1: healthy diet, proper sleep, managing your stress, and using those
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  Speaker 1: Big four supplements can definitely reduce your levels of chronic
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  Speaker 1: inflammation and extend your health span. And who doesn't want that.
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  Speaker 1: That's it for this week, folks, Catch you next time.
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  Speaker 1: You love