There are two news items in the paper today which apply to all of us including cat caregivers. Cat caregivers need to remain healthy in order to carry out their duties to a high standard! (❤️ ω ❤️)
Veganism is in the news again and this time there’s a study which suggests that a good vegan diet can reverse the body clock meaning you live longer. I’ll be succinct.
Eat good vegan and slow your biological clock by Michael BroadTaurine could be an elixir of life within us (infographic)
Switching to a vegan diet low in junk food i.e. a good and carefully prepared vegan diet may reverse one of the biological hallmarks of ageing. And that hallmark is the ‘epigenetic clock’ (see base of page for details from Google’s Gemini). It’s a measure of biological age that looks at chemical tags attached to our DNA.
The suggestion is that if “our biological clock ticks lower, we might have a better chance of staying healthy.” Those are the words of Dr. Lucia Aronica, of Stanford University, California. In essence, the study found that an eight week vegan diet appeared to turn back the clock on certain ageing processes.
The key, however, is that it must be a good vegan diet and not one which includes lots of junk food and lacks nutrients such as B12, zinc and omega-3 fatty acids. They discovered this by feeding a good omnivorous diet and a good vegan diet to twins for eight weeks. The twin on the vegan diet lost weight because they consumed fewer calories. The loss of weight may be linked an improvement in health rather than the vegan diet per se.
Counteracting this is the fact that older vegans seemed “more likely to suffer from muscle loss, low bone density and neurological disorders.”
That information comes from Tom Sanders, Professor Emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London.
Cancer link to hair dye and paint.
There is a link between hair dye and bladder cancer. There are harmful chemicals in some dyes and paints. Another study found that hairdressers have a 30% to 35% higher risk of developing bladder cancer, caused by the use of hair dye ingredients that have now largely been phased out in the UK (but what about elsewhere?). For instance in India lead in paint is not banned.
Lead is banned in several countries but not in India. The Centre for Science and Environment tested popular paints in India for lead content. It found 72 per cent of the samples had lead much higher than the voluntary limit specified by the Bureau of Indian Standards.
It can take up to 30 years for bladder cancer to develop after initial exposure. That’s troubling for some hairdressers who have been working with these hair dyes many years ago. Many are likely to be cat owners. That’s my link the cats in this article. 😊 I am sure that in many countries hair dye still contains these toxins. This site is international. I hope this information helps.
It’s important, however, for cat owners to be in good health and ideally of a good BMI because with a good BMI it indicates that they are concerned about their weight and in which case they are likely to be concerned about the weight of their feline companion which in turn will promote health and contentment.
In the UK, bladder cancer is the 11th most common form of cancer with 10,500 cases and 5,500 deaths a year. Doctors put these high rates down to a lack of awareness of the condition.
In addition to hairdressers, factory workers working with paints in the past may have a 50% increased chance over the next two decades to develop bladder cancer due to harmful chemicals in the paints that they worked with. These were high risk occupations about which they were unaware. However, the effects of working with those carcinogenic toxins are now about to be felt and experienced by these people.
The epigenetic clock from AI bot ‘Poe’ – thank you.
The epigenetic clock refers to the ability to measure biological age based on DNA methylation patterns in the genome. Here’s a more detailed overview:
The epigenetic clock is a measure of biological age that is distinct from chronological age. It is based on the observation that as people age, certain DNA methylation patterns change in a predictable way across the genome. These methylation changes occur at specific CpG sites (regions where a cytosine nucleotide is followed by a guanine nucleotide) and the patterns can be used to estimate a person’s biological age.
The epigenetic clock was first developed in 2013 by researchers Steve Horvath and colleagues. They analyzed DNA methylation data from over 8,000 samples across multiple tissues and identified a set of 353 CpG sites whose methylation levels could be used to accurately predict chronological age. This “Horvath clock” has since been refined and expanded upon, with additional epigenetic clocks developed that can estimate age in more specific tissues or cell types.
The epigenetic clock is considered to be a more accurate indicator of biological age compared to just looking at chronological age. It can capture differences in the rate of aging between individuals that are influenced by factors like genetics, lifestyle, and health status. An older epigenetic age compared to chronological age may indicate accelerated biological aging, while a younger epigenetic age could suggest a slower rate of aging.
Researchers are actively studying the epigenetic clock and its applications in fields like longevity research, disease prediction, and forensics. It provides a powerful tool for understanding the biological processes underlying aging and age-related diseases.
