Inflammaging: Reducing Cellular Aging Through Lifestyle
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SHEREE BEAUMONT: [00:00:00] Your gut is probably inflammed, like let's be real. The foods that we're putting in, the things that we do, the stress that we're, you know, active in all the time, we need to give ourselves a period of healing. If you have a scab that's on your hand and you're constantly picking at it, it's always having to seal as in those molecules and the healing.
Little soldiers to your hand to be like, let me res scab, let's try the healing process again, the same with the gut. If it's already inflamed and you're constantly sending things down that just irritate it, irritated, it irritated, it's never gonna get a chance to heal. And so we do need to prioritize things like you, good fibers, you are fermented foods, avoiding highly processed sugar.
Maybe if you're one of those people limiting high levels of gluten, high levels of alcohol. All of that does take its toll on the body and drive up that inflammation as well.
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CHRISTA ELZA: Welcome back to another episode of the Wild and Well Collective. Today we're gonna touch on a topic that, you know, aging, I think is a topic that is just con, constantly being studied because we don't quite know exactly what causes us to age. Truth be told, people who work out regularly eat well.
They still age so. What is it on a cellular level that's really driving aging? And that's not an answer that I can answer right now because the top scientists on this planet don't quite know what's kind of driving it or how to stop it, right? So, but , there are some things that we do know.
And so today let's talk about what we do know and how we can kind of slow down some of these processes. [00:02:00] The topic that we wanna talk about today is called inflammaging, which is really the inflammatory processes that create more aging in our cells. And inflammation is useful. We have to have it. So if we cut ourselves, if we have surgery if there's a need for a healing process, then it's really important to have our immune system run to the rescue to have some, you know.
Swelling isn't necessarily like what we're looking for, but I mean, like what's driving the swelling is all of those kind of construction workers out in full force trying to fix the problem, right? But our body should have all the construction workers kind of rebuilding after surgery or rebuilding after an injury, and then they should simmer down and kind of go back to their quiet docile self.
But what can happen is we can have chronic inflammation, we can have chronic triggering of this inflammatory process, and that can actually lead to a lot of cellular damage. And we [00:03:00] know that when we have damage to our cells, that it can create for many different reasons, more of a decline in our overall health because on a cellular level, we're just not optimized.
There's too much kind of, of that redness. Revved upness of our immune system and of the inflammatory process.
SHEREE BEAUMONT: Yeah, and like you mentioned at the beginning, there are some beautiful things we can do to reduce aging or the rate that we age or even reduce the risk of damage to our cells.
Things like the exercise and healthy eating. And we heard till we're below in the face the fact that processed foods and sugars and stress can all rapidly increase the aging. But what we're really talking about here is. The way that it happens in the body, you know, to the point where it's damaging your DNA, it's shortening the telomeres, the little things inside of your DNA, and it actually increases the risk of your chronic diseases.
So it's not just [00:04:00] about, you know, do we look younger? Do we feel younger? The reason we look and feel younger is because we are not dealing with this chronic level of inflammation. In fact. You know, just to toot my own horn a little bit here, the amount of people that have said to me since I've been here that they thought I was in my mid to early twenties.
Be, and I'm like, that is a testament to the fact that I look after myself and I really do focus on bringing down the inflammation or actually keeping inflammation at an all time low in my body because I do wanna age gracefully. And so if you're sitting here thinking like, I don't know if I'm inflamed.
Some of the key factors or symptoms to look out for is if you're experiencing fatigue, if you've got brain fog, if you've got slower recovery or feeling really tired after workouts or workouts are really hard for you. If you are, and this goes for my 30 year olds out there, if you are waking up with aches and pains, no, it is not normal.
Can I just please, like, can we break this mold or this belief or this idea that Okay, I hit 30 and [00:05:00] from this point onwards, I'm gonna get joint pain back pain. Absolutely not. I am the fittest and healthiest I've ever been in my life, and I actually feel like I'm aging backwards and I know the case.
That's the case for so many of our clients. That's the case for ourselves like. We don't need to buy into this misunderstanding. So you know, your skin might be looking older, you may be feeling like it's harder to lose fat. All of this is not because of your age. All of this is driven by inflammation. And so when we deal with it as the root cause, that's when we see things shift.
You should be able to still feel really good when you get out of bed, not like you've got little creeks and groans from the moment you turn 30.
CHRISTA ELZA: No, I'm in my mid forties and I don't have any of that, so I definitely agree. I think, you know, when we have cellular damage, you do have more of that aches, pains, fatigue, brain fog, and so I think a good place to start is what are you putting into your body?[00:06:00]
Because the food that we eat creates a signal. In our body, food is just a messenger. They're messenger molecules, right? You chew it up, swallow it, it's in your system. Your body has to break it down further in the stomach it goes into your intestine, and then that is further broken down into the molecules.
And so what message are you giving your body if it's full of sugar? If it's full of carbohydrate and by sugar I don't just mean something sweet. Things like tortilla chips and things like beer and things like bread and tort, you know, all of those things are sugar It. It's sugar. We have a lot of sugar in our western diet, and that refined sugar creates what's called a GS advanced glycation in products.
Those themselves create. Kind of a burning sense, like, I know that it was described before as like caramelizing onions, you know, kind of, it browns them. , It's a browning of the cells around [00:07:00] us that creates damage. And then the immune system is like, oh my gosh, we've gotta take care of this. Right?
So it creates kind of an inflammatory process when there's not a need per se. There's not a threat in terms of like a virus or a bacteria or an injury. And yet the cells are giving out signals of like, we're injured. So that revs up the immune system that that creates a problem. So you wanna replace some of those things with making sure that you've got omega rich foods, fish omega supplements, perhaps.
Christophers vegetables that can help with detoxification fermented foods even. So all of those kind of focusing on those kind of foods give your body a different message. And with that then your cells maintain their health, right? The study of the membrane stays healthy, the organelles within the cells.
And so there are definitely things in lifestyle. I mean, most of the impact that we can have, and I know there's a lot of studies going on with aging. It's, a [00:08:00] lot of it is based around different molecules and things like that, like NAD and glutathione and all of those things are great, but we have a lot of ability to stave off this aging process by a healthier lifestyle, and that's just.
Again, bringing awareness to like, what message am I giving my body? Am I sedentary or am I challenging my body a a little bit with movement? Am I eating processed food all day or am I giving my body healthy messages? Right? So a lot of it is in our control.
SHEREE BEAUMONT: Yeah. I wanna highlight, you mentioned the refined sugar and how that.
Does caramelize yourselves, as you said. But the other thing when it comes to processed foods, you know, a lot of attention is being bought now to seed oils. We are seeing, especially across the board here in the States, the. Change in restaurants using seed oils to cook with the movement around. Actually, let's get these out of our products.
We know they're damaging. We've known this for years, but the actual movement around this, I'm lobbying [00:09:00] seeing, and I just wanna highlight what, like why the hype around it, right? Like canola oil, vegetable oil, all of these seed oils that we have been consuming unfortunately for, you know, decades now that have just been slipped into the diet they are high in omega six and the omega six. That is damaging. We're not talking about your evening primrose oil. That's great for females in managing their menstrual cycles. We're talking about the damaging omega sixes, which create inflammatory prostaglandins. So again, if you're someone listening that experiences menstrual cramps or has really painful periods or just in general notices your over like.
Inflamed overall, like that puffy feeling that you just kind of can't shake or get rid of. Chances are you've got a higher omega six to Omega-3 ratio, and this is one of the biggest things that can start to load up the liver. Drive your cholesterol levels up like your cholesterol often isn't a byproduct of you having eggs and butter.
Let me just get that up there. It's the fact that you are. Having highly inflammatory foods and you've got extra [00:10:00] toxins your body can't handle. The overload with things like alcohol are going to create inflammation. So it's not just, oh, don't have that processed food. It's looking at the dressings that you're consuming.
It's looking at the things that would shock you. I've literally been trying to find a like hash brown that doesn't have seed oil in it for my breakfast. 'cause I just want a sweet potato hash brown with my breakfast after training. Non-existent. I'm gonna have to make my own. Right? So like get really clear on what you are putting into your body because that is gonna be driving the aging process so much more rapidly than, you know.
Again, we can mitigate it with what, with the foods that you said, like the Omega-3 rich foods or the cruciferous veggies and highly detoxifying foods. But sometimes it is a matter of looking at what we need to take out first.
CHRISTA ELZA: Yeah, I look at the omega six to Omega-3 ratio in a lot of patients and. It is hidden in so many processed foods that it's almost impossible to [00:11:00] not have a ratio like that without adding some good omega threes.
But the omega sixes really on a cellular level, it makes the cell membrane more like a more stiff, so nutrients kind of bounce off of it. Whereas if you've got a good quality amount and ratio with Omega-3, the cell membranes. Are thinner, are more permeable and so we can get nutrients into the cell.
So that's a good point too with the omega sixes. You know, inflammation is driven by a couple of things, primarily IL six, which is the immune system and then alpha. And both of those can be upregulated. You can test for them. I don't typically because. You know, I mean if you want objective data, you can actually look at these numbers in lab work, but when we upregulate those parts of our immune system, it creates more damage to the DNA and we know when there's damage to DNA, either it becomes a zombie cell where it just kind of sits there and creates more inflammation around it.
That's another sign of [00:12:00] aging. It can also lead us to more risk of cancer because when there's DNA damage in cells, it can lead to higher probability of cancers. So what can we do about this, right? Besides eating, there's other things that we can maybe. Explore, there's a big push for cold plunges and sauna, and those things actually have a place with, when it comes to aging and longevity and just like, how do we have cellular health, right?
Some of these things come down to a little bit of, we've talked about this before, but hormesis like a little bit of stress to the body to help the body regulate and in a way that's not overpowering. So saunas have been shown to have like 40% decrease in mortality with cardiovascular disease. Part of it's because of the heat shock proteins that are released when we're sitting in hotter temperatures.
That can actually lower our CRP, which is a protein that's in our blood that can be upregulated with inflammation, and that puts you at higher cardiovascular risk, which, and that's important to [00:13:00] address even in your thirties. People don't have heart attacks in their fifties and sixties. Like overnight that happened.
The whatever created that event later in life started several decades prior. So we don't think about it in our thirties and forties, but that's actually when you should be thinking about it because it's doing yourself a favor for in your fifties, sixties, seventies, right? That's when we start to see the end products of our lifestyle.
Kind of creeping up and by that time we've, we've done some damage, right? So doing things like sauna, doing things like a cold plunge can be enough of a stimulant to the body to upregulate it in a healthy way.
SHEREE BEAUMONT: Yeah. We know and love both of us practice these tools on a regular basis. Again, from the perspective of I know this is supporting my longevity.
You know, there are some beautiful physiological benefits as well. Mental emotional benefits too to, to both of these. Supporting estrogen detoxification is one [00:14:00] with the sauna that I love, but the cold exposure, , we are down, we're literally telling our body. To calm down the pro-inflammatory cytokines.
So the little messengers that are going, Hey, hello. Your body needs some help. It's, it, the cold exposure is going, it's okay. Like we're safe. And that hormesis, like you talk about, is improving that stress resilience too. And if you think about it from a cortisol level, if we're going through. Waves or high prolonged stress that is communicating to the body.
More inflammation. More inflammation, more inflammation. So considering we are living in a time of high stress, if we're able to actually expand our capacity to tolerate stress by using things like hot or cold therapy, then we're gonna downregulate that inflammatory process as well. One of the things that I don't wanna leave out of the conversation here is gut health, because.
You know, we do talk about this a lot of the time, but it's because it literally is the center of all disease in my opinion, and a lot of the foundational, you know, functional [00:15:00] medicine research. And if we can keep our. Gut and our digestive system really happy. Our inflammation's gonna be lower too.
You know, the term leaky gut is a result of high levels of inflammation. Maybe you're eating too much gluten, maybe you are stressed too chronically, and that's gonna allow toxins, and pathogens to leave. What I like to think of is like an internal hose. You know, your digestive system is supposed to start at the mouth and then exit through the anus, and that is not really, apart from the amino acids and things that you wanna be absorbing, the little, little tiny nutrients that are going into to help make up your cells, apart from those passing through the barrier there, you're not supposed to have those toxins and pathogens, pathogens leaving the the microbiome essentially.
And so. When we think about the immune system being a , primary part of your gut and supporting reducing this inflammation, then. It becomes a huge part of this conversation. If you're having those processed foods. [00:16:00] If you're doing things to trigger bigger inflammation, that's gonna result in low serotonin, which is your happy hormone, it's gonna result in poor sleep.
'cause we know the connection between serotonin and melatonin, which is gonna lead to higher cortisol, which leads to that. Higher inflammation state, which leads to poor gut health and we're stuck in this nasty cycle. So ultimately we wanna make sure we're nourishing our microbiome and settling down that inflammation.
Like one of the things that I quite often will share with my clients is. Your gut is probably inflammed, like let's be real. The foods that we're putting in, the things that we do, the stress that we're, you know, active in all the time, we need to give ourselves a period of healing. If you have a scab that's on your hand and you're constantly picking at it, it's always having to seal as in those molecules and the healing.
Little soldiers to your hand to be like, let me res scab, let's try the healing process again, the same with the gut. If you're co, if it's already inflamed and you're constantly sending things down that just irritate it, irritated, it [00:17:00] irritated, it's never gonna get a chance to heal. And so we do need to prioritize things like you, good fibers, you are fermented foods, avoiding highly processed sugar.
Maybe if you're one of those people limiting high levels of gluten, high levels of alcohol. All of that does take its toll on the body and drive up that inflammation as well.
CHRISTA ELZA: Yeah, I think people really disregard the, your gut health and 70% of our immune system is, comes from our gut. Like our gut teaches our immune system actually.
What's safe, what's not safe? So when the gut microbiome is a mess and we've got an overgrowth of bad bacteria that really does wreak havoc on our immune system, and when the immune system is revved up, then we're more at risk for like autoimmune diseases and just overall inflammation. One thing, not to kind of divert, but the GLP one medications, when patients are on them, they don't eat as much.
And a lot of my patients will say, I actually have less bloating. I actually. Have less [00:18:00] inflammation. And it's just interesting, even people who think that they're eating well don't recognize how much they're kind of nitpicking and snacking at little things. And then once they're on a GLP one where their appetite is more suppressed and , they're being more in like more intentional about what, when they eat what they are actually eating and getting nutrition in, like obviously using these medications correctly, they start to notice, wow, I don't have bloating anymore.
I don't feel as inflamed. And that just goes to show you how food. Really does affect our gut microbiome. And then in general, like how we feel, how we age. Right. Some things besides food though that I wanted to bring up are some supplements that can be really helpful and omegas we've talked about before, but you know, the Omega-3 is really important.
So fish oil oftentimes people need it from a fish source, so fish or an algae source, not, you know, more of a fish source. Some people, really need that versus like from a plant source of Omegas. So, knowing your DNA can help you with that, but Omegas can be really [00:19:00] helpful for inflammation. High dose curcumin can be really helpful too.
It's like a natural way to lower inflammation, which if we can get something naturally curcumin mixed with black pepper. So you wanna look at formulations that have that both. It helps absorption. And then two others that you may not really be familiar with, but lytics are. There're supplements that typically contain ottin, maybe quercetin, but these molecules have been studied and have shown that they go in and you only wanna do these like maybe once a month.
I've got some formulas that I use that are maybe once a month you'll take four capsules. Or maybe quarterly you're gonna do slys. Slys attack and destroy the cells that I mentioned earlier that are cells that have inflammation and they essentially should die, but they don't. And so we have what are called zombie cells or lytic cells.
Right, or senescent cells, sorry, senescent cells that basically are not going through the natural process of auto, of like, [00:20:00] like breaking down. Right. We should. Cells that are done, used up, inflamed, should break themselves down. The lysosome should eat it up and then we should get rid of it. Some of these cells just kind of hang out.
They do serve a purpose in our body, but as we age, we tend to have way more than we need. And it no longer serves a purpose. It actually creates more inflammation. 'cause there's sending out these like, eat me, eat me, I'm inflamed Signal. And so the immune system is kind of there, so it's revving up the immune system, but the cells aren't actually dying.
So some of these these supplements called lytics periodically can be really helpful to kinda clear the system. So I definitely recommend those once a month, if not once quarterly, to do a cycle of those that can really kinda help clear things out. The other one is Sperming and I believe sperm Aine is actually naturally sourced.
It actually is in semen. I think that's where the name comes from, but it also comes from wheat germ, so they'll source, I know some supplement companies. Source wheat germ in other countries because I think they have healthier wheat. It doesn't, yeah, I don't know. [00:21:00] The US and gluten and wheat, I don't know.
But they'll actually source the sperming and get it from wheat germ and the sperming can actually help speed up and increase some of that autophagy that we're talking about, like recycling cells. Right. Recognizing that a cell is damaged, it's done, it needs to be recycled, and it kind of speed up that process.
So there are definitely some supplements that you can add to your routine that help these. I, like I said, I try to do the nalytics about quarterly and then do daily omegas, and then on and off I'll do some sperming as well. Some of these are still kind of in trials, but they're worth trying.
Right. I think some of this can be really helpful on a cellular level for lowering that inflammation, which drives aging.
SHEREE BEAUMONT: Yeah, and I think one thing that we should bring to the conversation too is around exercise. 'cause supplements are amazing. The food we've touched on. But exercise plays a huge role in aging and we talked about it right at the beginning, how people who work out tend to live longer, feel better, have less aches and pains ironically.
'cause a lot of [00:22:00] people are go, I can't exercise 'cause my back hurts. No. But what I do wanna bring into light is, and it's finding that balance when it comes to exercise because we can. Overdo it as well, and that is what drives the inflammation. You know, we see people who go in and they're doing HIIT workouts five to six times a week.
That's gonna drive your cortisol up, it's gonna drive your inflammation up. You're not gonna give your body enough time to recover. When you think about what you're doing when you're training, you're actually tearing the muscle fibers apart. And encouraging them to grow back bigger and stronger. Like if you're doing training properly, that's what's happening.
And so if you aren't giving your body enough time to rest and replenish and restore, and then enough fuel or the right kind of fuel to actually rebuild you effectively, you're gonna find that you have more chronic levels of inflammation. So it's being really mindful that you are getting, you know. Two to three strength training sessions in a week.
You're getting in some sort of cardiovascular fitness, but we don't have to be on [00:23:00] all the time and encouraging that high output all the time. You know, I normally recommend, and the science supports this, no more than two hits sessions a week, or like we've talked about another episode. You kind of tack it onto the end of some of your workouts when you're feeling up to it.
'cause over training is gonna switch that flip back into chronic inflammation, the right level, that Goldilocks effect of, you know. Consistent training where you're showing up and you do have rest days, you have good rest times, et cetera, that's gonna have more of an anti-inflammatory effect. So it's, it's finding that beautiful balance that works for you and showing up with consistency.
CHRISTA ELZA: I think be, before we wrap this up, I wanna kind of give some information on how you can actually test it, because how do you actually know there is some tests that you can do in blood work. You can look at your CRP. So high sensitivity, CRP is one that you should probably check yearly. This can change with, you know, being sick.
If you're finding that, you know, every time you're checking your blood work, your CRP is high, that is an indicator that you have chronic [00:24:00] inflammation. The immune components that I mentioned before IL six and TNF alpha, those can be helpful too. And you can check those on blood work. Those are not gonna be in typical blood work, so you'd have to.
For those, but you could look at those levels. And then beyond that, in terms of like functional testing, I like to see a GI map on a lot of patients where they're looking at a stool test. But with that you can see a protein called zonulin, and zonulin is released by the cells. When we got leaky gut, like what you were talking about, Shari, the.
Kinda the, that breakdown and that permeability, if we have a lot of it, you'll see a higher level of that protein zonulin. And that can be an indicator of like, whoa, my gut, my, you know, my gut lining is not really intact. And so you'd wanna work with a practitioner to heal that and, and kind of get some supplements going that can help heal that alongside with like some dietary changes.
And then finally, there are some tests that you can do to look at the telomeres, which is basically at the end of our DNA strands. We have like these shoe laces, and the shorter the shoe laces are, the more aging, the more aged [00:25:00] that is that DNA strand. So our goal then is to have these shoe strings longer.
There are some tests. There's a company called True Age that can look at that. I don't know how accurate these tests are all the time, but they are kind of a, a point that you could try and see like, okay, what is the length of my telomeres? And it can tell you your cellular age, not your, you know, and then you can kind of pair that against your chronological age and say, whoa, I'm doing really well.
Or Why am I 20 years older in my cells than what I am chronologically, right. So there are some objective things that you can look at. Whether it's blood or stool testing or you know, saliva testing, but there are some things that we can look at to kinda see where we stand in terms of objective information on aging.
For sure.
SHEREE BEAUMONT: Thank you for sharing that. I think it's important for us to know, like what we can look at, aside from those telltale symptoms or signals that our body's sending us. So, 'cause sometimes we can be like, what on earth is going on? I'm getting all these symptoms, but I [00:26:00] dunno why. And so sometimes having that ground.
That evidence to really ground us can be really, really helpful. So just to recap, essentially what we're sharing is you need to be eating to support your cellular health. We are gonna come back to that circadian rhythm, making sure that you're. Regulating your hormones that way, making sure your cortisol's going down at night and you're actually able to sleep to restore and replenish.
Making sure that you've got some level of recovery practice to compliment and supplement your training, like it really is just showing up consistently and putting in the foods. It doesn't have to be a hundred percent. That 80 20 principle really does work here. Same sort of thing with exercise, 80%, 20% rest, like just bringing in something and hopefully you can take it away.
Something from today that is maybe new or nuanced to you that you wanna go and apply and try on. Whether it's the cold shower at the end of your warm shower or my new thing that I've been trialing of, like shoving my face in cold water person in the morning to help with, you know, the firmness around [00:27:00] it.
It's all coming back to making sure you're supporting yourselves and the health when they age.
CHRISTA ELZA: Yeah, I love it there. You know, never forget that there's so much that we can do without any fancy supplements or testing per se. Just start dialing in the things that we talked about with food, regular exercise, a little bit of hormetic stress with.
Maybe Asana or cold plunge. All of those things work together even without some of the testing. But if you are looking for testing you can reach out to either Sheri or I know that we both offer some of these tests and can look at that with you. But if you have any questions, please reach out. I hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.
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