Because I’m not a scientist, I’m always concerned when I attempt to describe scientific terms in my articles and speeches that scientists all over the world will wrap their heads in sterile bandages in order to keep their brains from exploding. As a trained musician, it’s probably similar to my watching some famous actor who doesn’t know the basics of directing an orchestra pretending to direct by waving their arms in bizarre circles.(Actually, Richard Dreyfuss, did a great job in “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” but he was one of the only stars who seemed to bother to learn to actually conduct.)
Well, today’s scientific word is telomere. My first exposure to this term was back in 2007 when Dr. Dean Ornish began quizzing one of the scientists atthe Chan Soon-Shiong Institute for Molecular Medicine in Windber (then the Windber Research Institute). He talked to him about telomeres and their potential relationship to heart disease. In 2009, scientists from UCSF, Johns Hopkins, and Harvard shared the Nobel Prize for their findings in telomere research. In 2013, Dr. Ornish and his colleagues at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and the University of California San Francisco published an article in The Lancet, the British Journal of Medicine, that discussed their findings. “Comprehensive lifestyle changes may increase the length of telomeres which can be an indication of biological age over time.” (ht tps://www.ucsf.edu/ news/2013/09/108886/lifestylechanges-may-lengthen-telomeres-measure-cell-aging) Stay with me, please!
Telomeres are found at the ends of human chromosomes and are described by Dr. Ornish as similar to the plastic ends of shoe laces that keep those shoe laces from unraveling. Similarly, the telomeres help to keep our DNA and chromosomes from unraveling. As our telomeres get shorter, our lives tend to get shorter. “So what?” you may be asking.
Well, here’s whereIstart looking like Jimmy Stewart in “The Glenn Miller Story,” waving my arms all over the place. The bottom line is that researchers have found that telomeres may very well contribute to a kind of anti-aging and lengthening of our lives. They’re not exactly the Fountain of Youth, but they certainly seem to be heading us toward that water source.
Simply put, if we can lengthen our telomeres, we can potentially extend our existence here on Earth. Why am I writing about this? Well, a few columns ago I wrote about Tranquility Gardens located immediately off Rockwood Lane in Upper Yoder Township, and a few days later, a friend sent me a news story from the Alberta Health Services from 2014 outlining the fact that, for the first time, researchers have shown that practicing mindfulness meditation or being involved in a support group has a positive physical impact at the cellular level in breast cancer survivors.
What is that positive physical impact you might ask? The article from the University of Calgary went on to explain that the group working out of Alberta Health Services’ Tom Baker Cancer Centre and the University of Calgary Department of Oncology has demonstrated that telomeres maintain their length in breast cancer survivors who practice meditation or are involved in support groups, while these same telomeres shorten in a comparison group without any intervention.
In other words, if you meditate, you may lengthen your life. With this in mind, think about those meditation gardens. No, you don’t have to go to a garden to meditate; you can meditate anywhere. But why not take advantage of the rippling brooks, the beautiful flowers, the butterflies, and labyrinth? Why not at least try to lengthen your own telomeres. You don’t have to wait until you’re sick to attempt to help yourself.
Diet, exercise, stress management, and group support is not rocket science. Anyone can learn to conduct a march, and anyone can learn to meditate, to do a little self-healing, self-nurturing, and selfcare. It’s just over the river and through the woods.
