Did you know that your telomeres are extremely sensitive to the amount of fat you have?
I just read about this and wanted to share it with you right away. I had a lot of time during my flights on the way to Africa to catch up on new research, and here’s what I found. It’s from a brand new “meta-analysis” on this that hasn’t even been officially published yet.
Researchers at the German Cancer Research Centre looked at 29 other studies on the relationship between fat and telomere length.
Almost all of them found that the more overweight a person is, the shorter their telomeres are.1
And have a look at these other studies:
- When researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences looked at women over 30, they discovered that as the women got fatter, their telomeres got shorter. And the shorter their telomeres, the faster they aged.2
- As published in the American Journal of Human Biology, doctors discovered that the most common measures of obesity, including BMI (Body Mass Index), waist circumference, hip circumference, total body fat, and visceral adipose tissue volume (the amount of fat around your vital organs) were inversely proportional to the length of their telomeres. In other words, as BMI, waist size, fat levels, etc. went up, telomere length went down.
Telomeres, the biological clocks at the ends of your DNA strands, are very sensitive to oxidative stress and inflammation. Excess fat, or in medical terminology adiposity, increases oxidative stress and inflammation, which shortens telomeres.
But there’s a hidden danger here that you need to know about: The older your fat gets, the harder it is to get rid of. Literally.
I just read more about this in another unpublished study, this one from the Department of Human Genetics at Leiden University
Medical Center in The Netherlands. They found that fat shortens telomeres and increases the fat’s stiffness.As I got further into their research, I discovered something else. Telomere-shortened fat tissue can become dysfunctional.3 It can become fibrous – this is when the fat becomes thickened, stiff and scarred.
That means if you don’t do something about excess fat as soon as possible, it gets much harder to get rid of it.
And fibrous fat is dangerous. When fat has accumulated around say, your heart or liver, organs have to work harder to function. It can strangle your organs to the point they prematurely age from overwork.
So the sooner you lose any excess fat, the better.
That’s why when people come to me to help them shed excess fat and lose extra pounds, I give them an important fat fighting nutrient that’s also a powerful antioxidant.
You may have heard of it. It’s called irvingia gabonensis. It’s an extract from an African fruit seed that ramps up your body’s ability to burn off excess fat.
In Africa, traditional healers use it to maintain healthy blood sugar. But irvingia also has the remarkable ability to help you burn fat by ramping up your body’s fat-burning hormones like leptin and adiponectin.
It also contains powerful flavonoids that protect your heart and blood vessels, fight free radicals and activate important anti-aging genes to help you maintain telomere length.
I discovered irvingia’s antioxidant power almost by accident, while speaking with Dr. Josiah Kizito, my friend and researcher from South Africa. I’m going to see him again in just a few days.
He’s wonderful to speak with because he’s a knowledgeable researcher and expert in African healing plants. He’s regarded as South Africa’s best herbalist, and as personal physician to Nelson Mandela’s family, Dr. Kizito has access to research on the African mango that’s almost unknown back in the United States.
Dr. Kizito has found that the African mango that the irvingia extract comes from is rich in compounds that help reduce oxidative stress. They work by wiping out and mopping up the free-radical attacks on your body’s sensitive cells.
This helps you maintain telomere length and lose excess fat.
In my own research, I’ve found that irvingia is not just another fat loss fad. Lab tests prove it’s remarkable for being able to burn off fat and slim down people’s waists.
My patients who take it significantly reduce their body weight, body fat, waist and hip circumference and food intake, just like it’s been proven to do as part of an overall healthy approach to dropping weight.4
Have a look at this chart. See how people who took irvingia had their weight and waist size drop by a huge amount? Almost a 15% reduction over just a few short weeks…5
From what I’ve seen in my own practice, irvingia helps balance and reset your body’s fat-reduction messengers.
What I do is give my patients a special formula that includes irvingia, and within 8 to 10 weeks many of them experience what they call a “total transformation.”
A few people feel some of the effect before that, especially as their appetite starts to calm down. But because I use a combination of nutrients and herbs, it takes a while to build up in the body so it can reset and rebalance key systems in your body.
Overall, it’s been an overwhelming success.
Irvingia resets your body to the point where you naturally and easily resist the production of new fat cells, and shed old fat cells before their telomeres shorten and become fibrous and dangerous.
I recommend 150 mg of irvingia seed extract a day.
What do you need to know before using irvingia?
First read the label. Be sure that the supplement you buy is made from 100% natural extract of African mango, guaranteed. I’ve seen some diluted and tainted forms out there already.
Also, check for additives or fillers. Some combine true irvingia with other extracts that can cause nervousness or shakiness similar to the effects of too much caffeine.
1. Müezzinler A, Zaineddin AK, Brenner H. “Body mass index and leukocyte telomere length in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” Obes Rev. 2013. Epub ahead of print.
2. Kim S, et al. “Obesity and weight gain in adulthood and telomere length.” Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2009;18(3):816-20.
3. El Bouazzaoui F, Henneman P, Thijssen P, Visser A, Koning F, Lips M, Janssen I, Pijl H, Willems van Dijk K, van Harmelen V. “Adipocyte telomere length associates negatively with adipocyte size, whereas adipose tissue telomere length associates negatively with the extent of fibrosis in severely obese women.” Int J Obes. 2013. Epub ahead of print.
4. Hasani-Ranjbar S, Jouyandeh Z, Abdollahi M. “A systematic review of anti-obesity medicinal plants – an update.” J Diabetes Metab Disord. 2013;12(1):28.
5. Ngondi J, Etoundi B, Nyangono C, Mbofung C, Oben J. “IGOB131, a novel seed extract of the West African plant Irvingia gabonensis, significantly reduces body weight and improves metabolic parameters in overweight humans in a randomized double-blind placebo controlled investigation.” Lipids Health Dis. 2009;8:7.