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Increase Telomere Length by Eating More Vegetables
Recent evidence shows that eating more fruits and vegetables is directly related to having longer telomeres. Longer telomeres are associated with slower aging.
Telomere length is maximum at birth and gets shorter with age, influenced by oxidative stress, inflammation, and cell replication throughout life.
If you want to stay free of chronic disease and reduce your risk of dying, it is important to keep your telomeres intact.
Eating more servings of fruits and vegetables helps achieve this goal.
That’s according to a recent study, which looked at a random sample of 5448 US adults (average age of 46.5 years old) and found that telomeres were 27.8 base pairs longer for each 100g (3.5 ounces) of fruits and vegetables consumed per day.
That equates to 1.9 years less biological aging, according to the researchers.
When comparing people who consumed the most fruits and vegetables per day (at least 264 g/day, or roughly 3.5 servings per day) to those who consumed virtually none, the difference was 4.4 years of cellular aging.
These results held even after adjusting for age, gender, race, BMI, alcohol consumption, smoking, and physical activity.
