To be done

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References

Stress and pain are inevitable in life. Feeling stress, when it is not caused by external pressure, means that we love and care something. For example, a parent that is stressed about the health of a sick children means that he/she loves and care about his/her children. Pain may be a consequence of some good endeavour. For example, muscle pain during physical exercises makes you healthy and strong.
Therefore it is not good and impossible to completely avoid stress and pain. Instead we need to learn how to react to experiences.

Various researches suggest that the environment influences how the gene works. A nice analogy is the one reported in the article Big Question: Can your environment change your DNA? of the Duke Magazine staff, where genes are like computer hardware and environment is like a software program that can regulate and change what the computer hardware does.

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• What contributes to live an healthy life
• Health

References

• The Telomere Effect | 2020 | Elizabeth Blackburn, Elissa Epel

• Catalyst: a substance that increases the speed of a chemical reaction.
• Cell signaling: communication system between the body cells necessary to allowing cells to communicate and respond to changes in the environment to maintain health.
• DNA: substance that contains the genic information.
• Enzyme: a substance that has the function of catalyst in a biological process.
• Free radicals: molecule highly reactive. Some Reactive Oxygen Species are free radicals.
• Gene: the fundamental unit of a living being. It is a sequence of molecules that constitutes the DNA and that contains the characteristics of the living being.
• Ischemia: total or partial reduction of blood flow in an organ.
• Metabolism oxygen: process by which the body uses oxygen to produce energy.
• Reactive Oxygen Species: chemical substances formed as byproducts of the metabolism oxygen.

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• Health

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In the book The Telomere Effect is reported that:

• both the gene and the environment contribute to live an healthy life.
• the experiences we live and how we react to them can change the way we aging. In particular stress, rumination, anxiety and thought suppression have negative effects on health. In the books The Telomere Effect and La grande via, the following contributes to live an healthy life.

Physical activity

• Perform physical activity every day in particular:
  • activities like tai-chi and qiqong that involve slow gentle movements and physical postures with a controlled breathing.
  • brisk walking every day for half an hour. We should monitor the heart frequency and reach the 68-80% of the maximum heart frequency (calculated doing 220-age). A more accurate value for heart frequency can be calculated here: https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/health/target-heart-rate-zone-calculator.php. Select Karvonen by Age & RHR, then fill your Age and RHR (your resting heart rate measured in the morning after wake up). The reference value is the one that correspond to an intensity of 70%.
  • exercises to strengthen the muscle at least 2 days per week.
• Limit the time spent sitting down
• Perform 2-3 times a week exercises that stimulate all the main muscle groups: abdominals, pectorals, biceps, muscles of the back, quadriceps, hamstrings, calfs. It is suggested to perform one day of exercise and one day of rest for these exercises to allow the muscles to recover, strenghten and grow.

Meditation

• Practice meditation

Sleep

• Sleep adequately. It is important to wake up rested and with a fresh mind. Also if there is no a ideal number of hours of sleep, you should sleep at least 7 hours per night if you are adult.

Healthy diet

• Eating an healthy diet like the Mediterranean diet, in particular:
  • Eating lots of vegetables (fruits, vegetables, legumes) because they contain antioxidants (see How to reduce the risk to develop oxidative stress).
  • Mainly consume whole grain carbohydrates because they contain more fiber, vitamines, minerals and other nutrients than the refined carbohydrates.
  • Consume foods rich of Omega-3 at least three times a week because they contribute to lower triglycerides that, when high, have negative effects on health.
  • Reduce the consumption of meat and in particular of red meat because they are high in saturated fat that have negative effects on health. Prefer white meat that can be consumed 3 times per week considering a portion of 100 gr. Red meat should be consumed less than 1 portion (50 gr.) per week.
  • Reduce the consumption of food high in salt because they increase blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular disease.
  • Reduce the consumption of dairy products from animals milk because they are high in saturated fat. However milk and dairy products are important and should be present in a varied diet because they are source of important nutrients.
• Avoid to have a belly fat because it is related to various diseases in particular heart disease and chronic conditions. A waist circumference of 94 cm for the men and 80 cm for the women are considered at moderate risk. According to official guidelines, the bottom of the tape measure should be level with the top of the right hip bone, or ilium.
• Avoid sugary drinks like soda, cola and similar because they contain many calories almost without other nutrients and therefore increase the risk of disease like diabetes, heart diseases and chronic diseases.
• Concentrate the major of your daily calories intake in the firsts part of the day through the breakfast and the lunch. Instead, eat less at the dinner in the evening. This reduce the risk to be overweight and its negative impact on health.

Breathing

• Voluntarily reducing the respiratory rate from the usual 12-16 breaths per minute to 5-6 breaths per minute because it contributes to reduce stress. See also Breathing.

Protection from toxic substances

• Avoid to:

Definition

The telomere is a part of a chromosome and in particular the part that is at the end of a chromosome.

Characteristics

Some characteristics of the telomeres are:

• they protect the end region of the chromosome from degradation and from mistake during the DNA repair process.
• they shorten at each cells division.
• thanks to the activity of an enzyme called telomerase that has the function to create and replace telomeres, they lengthen.
• they can help to understand how quickly a cells age and die based on how quickly they shorten.

In the book The Telomere Effect is reported that the length of the telomeres and how quickly they shorten are indicators of the health of a person. Others articles suggest that these correlations are not clear.