Nutracast Podcast: Dr. Paul Clayton on cellular aging

This content item was originally published on www.nutraingredients-usa.com, a William Reed online publication.

15-May-2020 - Last updated on 19-Aug-2020 at 08:00 GMT

In recent years, research on aging has seen some major advancements, including the discovery that the rate of aging is controlled, at least to some extent. And according to Dr. Paul Clayton, who has researched, written and presented about the process of cellular aging, one’s chronological age and biological age are not necessarily the same. He says some people age faster than their calendar years, while others age more slowly.

Dr. Clayton, a clinical pharmacologist and pharmaco-nutritionist joined us for this episode of the NutraCast, to help us break down the complicated process of cellular aging.

“The machinery, both intercellular and intracellular, can be modified and modulated by all kinds of environmental inputs and most of them of course are dietary. There are other lifestyle issues as well, such as levels of physical activity, smoking and/or air pollution, stress..but many of these can be modified by and many can be ameliorated by using pharmanutritional tools,” explained Clayton.

He said in most cases, diet has the biggest influence on health. Our diet also plays a major role in the immune system, which experiences cellular aging as well.

“If you eat the SAD diet, the standard American diet, which causes chronic inflammation, it accelerates the aging of the immune system, which makes it more likely that you’ll develop sepsis/septicemia. That’s really interesting and very alarming, because if you look at American public health, you see that life expectancy has been falling for the last three years...so this junk food diet that we’re eating is no doubt accelerating the age of the immune system and we’re paying a heavy price for this.”

To hear more about genetics, pharmanutrition, telomere shortening, and other factor that relate to cellular aging, listen to the NutraCast. You can also subscribe on iTunes here.

NutraCast is a podcast that focuses on insights from inside the nutrition industry. It is a production by NutraIngredients-USA. Music by Kevin Macleod.