Dining with Dean Ornish

7 responses to “Dining with Dean Ornish”

1. 

   TomiTapio

   Oct 20, 2008 at 1:58 am

   Interesting angle, got an otherworldly feel.
   I think that if diet (antioxidants) affected the telomerase-driven part of longevity, we’d see it in the population statistics.

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2. 

   .flightblog

   Oct 20, 2008 at 2:32 pm

   I follow your photo stream for the rockets and I find my brother-in-law. 🙂

   Cool photo.

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3. 

   jurvetson

   Oct 20, 2008 at 4:06 pm

   Whoa… small world… like we’re living in a bubble.

   So, I had dinner with your sister (this is her dinner plate in the photo!) and we spoke, of all things, about rockets and the TED talk…

   Tomi: based on natural experiments in long-term diet variation?

   …and then, Dean’s Photo looking back at me…
   

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4. 

   wakeful top

   Oct 21, 2008 at 5:07 am

   Don’t you mean up-regulating telomerase, thereby keeping your telomeres long and avoiding degradation of the ends of your chromosomes? OTOH, then you’re likely also increasing the risk of cancer, as virtually all cancers require telomere-extending activity…

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5. 

   jurvetson

   Oct 21, 2008 at 4:34 pm

   Yes! The word "down" is now repaired and extended with "up" in the photo caption.

   Extending lifespan increases the risk of Alzheimer’s too… Come to think of it, longevity increases the chance of many bad things happening during your lifetime. =)

   But seriously, the regenerative medicine / cancer interplay is a fascinating one. I am reminded by the p53 Affymetrix Gene Chip I keep on my bookshelf.

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6. 

   wakeful top

   Oct 22, 2008 at 8:50 am

   Interesting quote by University of Michigan scientists who reported in the Oct 17 edition of Cell on 4 genes linking stem cells, aging and cancer:

   "The more we study this issue, the more we think that tissue aging exists as a by-product of mechanisms that were created to protect us against cancer"

   …further support for George Williams’ 1957 antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis of aging.

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7. 

   jurvetson

   Dec 6, 2008 at 12:56 am

   This just out on EDGE:

   "CHANGING LIFESTYLE CHANGES GENE EXPRESSION
   A Talk with Dean Ornish

   These findings may capture people’s imagination–so often, people think there is not much they can do, what I call genetic nihilism. But even if your mother and your father and your sister and brother and aunts and uncles all died from heart disease, it doesn’t mean that you need to. It just means that you are more likely to be genetically predisposed. If you are willing to make big enough changes, there is no reason you need ever develop heart disease, except in relatively rare cases."

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