The Age-Well Project

Change the way you age

Get our posts direct to your inbox

  • About The Age-Well Project
  • Books
    • Our Books
    • Reviews
    • References
  • Blog
  • Recipes
    • Recipes By Ingredient
    • Breakfast
    • Dessert
    • Dinner
    • Drinks
    • Family
    • On The Go
    • Soups and Salads
    • Treats and Snacks
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Press

THE SCIENCE OF AGEING – EXPLAINED VERY SIMPLY!

November 22, 2019 5 Comments

Look at this picture – what a gorgeous place to talk all things Age-Well! It was a privilege to speak at an intimate workshop at the beautiful Water Lane Farm in Gloucestershire earlier this week.

The hardest thing for me when I’m speaking at events and coaching clients is explaining the science of ageing: what’s happening in our bodies at a cellular level is complex and it’s taken me years to grasp it. But it’s critical that we do get our heads round this. Only then can we understand the relevance of our lifestyle choices to how we age. For me, understanding the science of ageing is empowering, and it’s helped to keep me on track with my own Age-Well project. I took a few props along to this workshop which (hopefully) made things clearer. They were rather unusual for a talk about science: a basket of unpaired socks, a packet of batteries, several pairs of shoe laces and a large fluffy Pac-Man! To explain:

OXIDATIVE STRESS As our cells metabolise oxygen (and digest food) they produce waste in the form of unpaired electrons, known as free radicals. These unstable atoms bomb around our bodies trying to find another atom to pair up with – causing havoc, and ageing. Like a basket of unpaired socks, beside a washing machine (in my house at least) they build up,  causing oxidative damage in our bodies. This free radical theory of ageing has been linked to Alzheimer’s, heart disease, auto-immune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis and cancer.

MITOCHONDRIAL FUNCTION – every cell in our bodies runs on ‘batteries’ called mitochondria. These are structures within cells which convert energy from food into a form that cells can use. As we age, they become less efficient. They’re damaged by free radicals, and they start to leak, just as old batteries do.

TELOMERE DAMAGE DNA, the instruction manual for every cell in our body, is packaged into thread-like structures called chromosomes. If our chromosomes were a shoe lace, telomeres would be the tip which stops it fraying. As we age, telomeres become shorter, causing cells to stop functioning properly and eventually die off. The shorter our telomeres, the older we are – short telomeres have been linked to Alzheimer’s, lung disease, heart disease.

INFLAMMATION Inflammation is both our body’s best friend and worst enemy. If we cut ourselves the body sends an acute inflammatory response and our skin is red and swollen as a cut heals.  But as we age the body is in an almost permanent ‘threat’ state, behaving as if there’s a problem it needs to deal with. This is called ‘low-grade inflammation’ and is a hallmark of ageing – so much so that doctors have coined the term ‘inflamm-ageing’. High levels of inflammation are found in people who become frail in old age. Why does it happen? It’s probably linked to the failure of our telomeres as they wear away and the leaking of our battery-like mitochondria. As we get older our bodies are less good at cleaning up this mess and our autophagy processes start to fail. This is the clean-up process whereby our bodies gobble up old, damaged cells – rather like Pac-Man eating the coloured dots he encounters. (In my mind, anyway!)

 

GUARDIAN MASTERCLASS + MORE WORKSHOPS IN THE NEW YEAR

Would you like to come to one of our workshops and learn how to Age Well? We’re delivering another Guardian Masterclass on January 7th (tickets here) and stay tuned for other workshops in London in 2020.

 

A LONGEVITY LUNCH

At this week’s workshop we enjoyed a ‘longevity lunch’: Water Lane Workshops Wonder Woman, Kate, cooked five of our favourite recipes from the blog: a perfect meal, plus a delicious chocolate-y snack to keep us fuelled up during the morning! Links to recipes, and an explanation of their Age-Well benefits below.

 

CHOCOLATE PEANUT SQUARES – cacao, chocolate’s raw material, is a potent source of bioflavonoids. These antioxidants fight cell damage caused by free radicals. Nuts have been found to reduce cardiovascular disease risk and reduce inflammation.

ROAST RED ONIONS WITH ROSEMARY AND ROCQUEFORT – onions and other alliums, including leeks and garlic are perfect prebiotics, keeping our gut microbiota well-fed and happy. An antioxidant flavonoid, quercetin, found in onions is also anti-inflammatory.

HARISSA ROASTED VEGETABLES WITH TAHINI-YOGHURT UNDERDRESSING – eating more anti-oxidant and fibre-rich vegetables is the single most important dietary change we can make to age well. The wider the variety, and the deeper the colour, the better.

PEA AND BEAN SALAD – peas are a terrific source of biotin, one of the B vitamins which helps the body convert food into energy. It’s also a vital nutrient for the condition of our hair, helping us keep our locks lustrous as we age.

CHIA SEED PARFAIT – these little seeds are powerhouses packed with omega 3 which help reduce inflammation in the body and have been linked to better gut health. The live natural yogurt contains probiotics, also essential for good gut health.

Susan

« THREE SIMPLE BOOSTS FOR GUT HEALTH
WHY WE NEED BOARD GAMES (AND EXERCISE) FOR CHRISTMAS »

Comments

  1. Kath says

    November 25, 2019 at 9:56 pm

    These are wonderful, thank you

    Reply
    • Susan Saunders says

      December 3, 2019 at 11:35 am

      Thanks so much, Kath. Glad you like! x

      Reply
  2. Jenny says

    December 4, 2019 at 3:34 pm

    I love the idea of using props to de- mystify the biology! I have always struggled to to decipher the scientific jargon into plain English and the storytelling angle helps the ideas to stick! As usual ladies, well done! Please can we have some workshops in Hampshire?

    Reply
    • Susan Saunders says

      December 5, 2019 at 10:35 am

      Thanks so much, Jenny! I’d love to do a workshop in Hampshire. I’m very happy to come to Itchen – let’s talk about it! Susan

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. WHAT IF THERE WAS ONE MOLECULE THAT SLOWS AGEING? AND A LONGEVITY-BOOSTING RECIPE - The Age-Well Project says:
    January 29, 2021 at 6:00 pm

    […] linked to one of the key hallmarks of ageing – telomere length. (You can read more about telomeres here but – quick primer – these are the shoelace-like caps on the ends of our chromosomes, which […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Welcome to The Age-Well Project

Welcome to The Age-Well Project!
Here you’ll find easy changes for a longer, happier life. We’ve immersed ourselves in the science of longevity and distilled the research to make it work in our everyday lives. You can change the way you age: here’s how.

Favourite Posts

WHY I’VE THROWN OUT ALL MY BEAUTY PRODUCTS (nearly…)

Why Alzheimer’s Is A Women’s Issue

HOW HAVING A DOG CHANGED MY LIFE

GREEN SPACE IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

SUGAR, CHOCOLATE, SADNESS AND BRAIN-BOOSTING BISCUITS

WHY ‘INFLAMM-AGEING’ COULD START IN THE GUT AND HARISSA-ROASTED VEGETABLE SALAD

POLYAMINES – THE NEW SECRET WEAPON FOR AGEING WELL & MOROCCAN SPINACH AND CHICKPEAS.

THINNING AGEING HAIR – WARM CHICKEN LIVER SALAD

About The Age Well Project

This site is for anyone who wants to make the second half of their life as healthy, happy and disease-free as possible. Sign up to get the latest research on ageing – and delicious recipes to match – direct to your inbox.

agewellproject

⭐️Change the way you age
📚The Age-Well Project + Age-Well Plan ⭐️Get tips & recipes on our blog - sign up ⬇️

The Age-Well Project blog
Everything we’ve learnt about ageing well points Everything we’ve learnt about ageing well points to a time (for women at least) in their mid-60s when the chronic conditions of ageing, like diabetes, heart disease and dementia, are - statistically - more likely to kick in. 

And we know that our reproductive hormones do so much more than prepare us to have periods and babies, we have receptors for them throughout our bodies and brains. 

Oestrogen, in particular, helps keep bones strong, blood vessels flexible, brains firing and inflammation levels low. Essentially, it wraps us up in a cosy protective cloak to keep us safe and healthy while we're able to reproduce, but once the eggs have run out - we're on our own! 

Between the average age of menopause at 51, and that time in our 60s when the chronic conditions of ageing are more likely to kick in, we have a decade or so in which it’s vital to focus on our health.

And how to do that? It’s on the blog - link in bio

#longevity #womenover50 #agewell #ageingwell #agingwell #longevityblog #healthblog #agewellblog #over50bloggers #womenover50 #healthspan #womenover60 #menopause #menopausehealth #postmenopause #postmenopausefitness #postmenopausal #oestrogen #hormonalhealth
If you’re lucky enough to have good metabolic he If you’re lucky enough to have good metabolic health you might want to thank your Mum today. Recent studies have found that women who move around during their reproductive years and during pregnancy and then breastfeed for a bit pass on a compound in their milk called 3SL which provides lifelong protection against poor metabolic health. The offspring of moving, breastfeeding Mums appear to have a lower lifetime risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and other chronic metabolic disease. Even gentle strolling during pregnancy and while nursing can produce this compound. So today we thank our Mums for that - as well as everything else.  Susan’s mum in the hat. Annabel’s mum in the pony tail. 

#mothersday #mothers #move #agewell #goodhealth #longevitylifestyle #longevity #walk
There’s been lots of good news for walkers recen There’s been lots of good news for walkers recently. A study published last month found that over-60s who walked between 6000 and 9000 steps a day cut their risk of heart disease (including strokes and heart attacks) by 40-50 percent, when compared to a more typical 2000 steps a day. In fact this study found that for every additional 1000 steps walked, the risk fell still further. 

How far are you walking to age well? Let us know in the comments and there’s more on the power of walking on the blog - link in bio

#longevity #womenover50 #agewell #ageingwell #agingwell #longevityblog #healthblog #agewellblog #over50bloggers #womenover50 #healthspan #womenover60 #walking #womenwhowalk #womenwhohike #reversewalking #backwardswalking #walkingbackwards
A big hug from us to you to mark International Wom A big hug from us to you to mark International Women’s Day! 

The campaign this year reminds us to embrace equity as a way to recognise that each of us has different circumstances, and we need different resources and opportunities to reach an equal outcome. Of course, this is as vital in ageing and health outcomes as in every other field.  

So we’re embracing our age and hoping to grow older in a more equitable society ❤️

#internationalwomensday #embraceequity #embracequity2023 ##longevity #womenover50 #agewell #ageingwell #agingwell #longevityblog #healthblog #agewellblog #over50bloggers #womenover50 #healthspan #womenover60 #iwd2023 #madformidlife
We’ve learned to love walking backwards! So many We’ve learned to love walking backwards! So many benefits when it comes to ageing well. 

If you’re not sure how to start or are worried about looking silly (we were) - there are lots of tips on the blog, link in bio. 

If you’re a backwards walker, let us know in comments below! 

If you’re planning to start, save this post for when you’re ready for some reverse walking 

#longevity #womenover50 #agewell #ageingwell #agingwell #longevityblog #healthblog #agewellblog #over50bloggers #womenover50 #healthspan #womenover60 #walking #womenwhowalk #womenwhohike #reversewalking #backwardswalking #walkingbackwards
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Contact Us

For any enquiries please email theagewellproject@gmail.com.

Copyright © 2023 The Age-Well Project