A healthy lifestyle can magically make you live longer.

OK, so that sounds a bit dramatic and the idea is not exactly novel:  That healthy living – diet, exercise and stress management – helps you live longer.  But emerging science suggests that there is a real rejuvenation at the cellular level.  And it’s not induced by some chemical cream from a pharmachem cosmetics company.

The study reported in Lancet Oncology by Prof Dean Ornish and a University of California team looked at just 35 men with prostate cancer and those who changed their lifestyle had demonstrably younger cells in genetic terms.  The study is intriguing but it is too early to draw firm conclusions.  Nevertheless, if you don’t like the idea of dying or cancer or a heart attack, you might like to risk a bit of healthy living!

The Lancet Oncology: Effect of comprehensive lifestyle changes on telomerase activity and telomere length in men with biopsy-proven low-risk prostate cancer: 5-year follow-up of a descriptive pilot study – abstract

BBC: Health kick ‘reverses cell ageing’

BBC: Can we reverse ageing?

BBC: Long-term fitness ‘fights ageing’

BBC: Sedentary life ‘speeds up ageing’