Everyone, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays, and this is the fifth podcast in our series on the hallmarks of aging and more importantly, what we can do about it. So, Terry, the loss of proteostasis, which basically refers to high well we manage our cells proteins, or the proteins within our cells, whether we can keep them correctly folded and functional and free from damage. So we know that and amino acids are really the workhorses of our cells. So the proteins
are obviously made up of amino acids. But what proteins do inside the cell is they build and repair our tissues, and they transport molecules, they catalyze essential biochemical reactions and do so. But as we age, our ability to maintain protostasis, which basically means protein homeostasis or protein balance, that actually declines, and this leads to the accumulation of what we call misfolded and damage proteins, which contributes to Timer's disease, Parkinson's disease, cancer,
and general tissue degeneration. Now, the good news is that there is lifestyle choices that we can make that can slow this process down. And this loss of proteo stasis and can actually enhance our protein maintenance and support. So first of all, let's do a bit of a dive into proteostasis and why it's important. So it is really the delicate balance of protein production, folding, maintenance, and degradation within our cells. And this system involves a number of
different things. So the first one is protein synthesis, so this is about proteins from the building blocks of proteins, which are amino acids. And then we have protein folding, so this ensures that proteins take on the correct shape to function properly, and the shape of the protein actually determines its function. And then we have these protein quality control mechanism mechanisms that detect and repair our misfolded proteins, and we're going to talk about how we can upregulate
some of those. And then the last thing is about protein degradation, So this is about removing damaged or dysfunctional proteins through cellular cleanup mechanisms like autophogy, which you'll talk about before, or are Another way to do this is something called the ubiquitin proteosome system right bit complex, but it's basically cellular cleanup. Now, when all these systems are working well, our cells functioning optimally, they remain resilient to
stress and they can quick environmental changes. But when protostasis breaks down, that's when we get these damage proteins accumulating, leading to cellular dysfunction, inflammation, and chronic disease. Now, as we aige, there's a number of things that interfere with this protein balance. So the first of all, first is decline in what we call molecular chaperones. So chaperones are proteins that actually help other proteins fold correctly. They're like
the janitors of the cell. So aging reduces the activity of these chaperones, increasing the risk of protein misfolding and aggregation. And then the second is imperatophogy and proteosome function. So autophogy is the process by which cells break down and recycle damage proteins, and they actually it's very clever. They recycle this stuff and actually use the energy for other
functions in the cell. And as we age, g starts their system starts to slow down, which causes a buildup of toxic protein aggregates as we see in Alzheimer's disease.
And then the proteosome.
That's another cleanup system that tags and removes faulty proteins, and that also loses its efficiency over time. Then it interferes with protein balances oxided of stress and inflammation, and we talked about inflammating last week, and you see all of these things are interrelated, right. So free radicals, which you'll probably know, are unstable molecules, they actually damage proteins,
increasing our cellular cleanup systems. So what we're going to do is try and improve the cellular cleanup system and make sure it doesn't degrade too much, but then also minimize the damage that's coming into the sale. And then chronic inflammation then further disrupts this proteo stasis. After we have these free radicals, the last thing is the accumulation of these protein aggregates. So neurodegeneric diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's,
we see these abnormal proteins. In an Alzheimer's disease, they're called beta amyloid and tauel proteins, and in Parkinson's disease, it's alphasin nuclear that accumulates, leading to neural damage. So let's talk about the stuff that we can do. First, cab off the rank. You'll not be surprised to hear is exercise, and it is actually one of the most powerful ways to enhance proteostasis and prevent the buildup of damage proteins. So here's how it works. We know that
exercise boosts autophogy. There's a heap of research that shows that it boosts autoplogy the cellular cleaner, particularly in muscle cells, and it helps to clear out these misfolded or damage proteins before they accumulate to onhealthy levels. And we know that both high intents and endurance exercise are particularly effective in stimulating utopogy, and some research suggests that exercising in a fasted ste it can actually enhance that autophogy within
the muscle cells. The next way that exercise actually helps is that it in what we call heat shop proteins. So these are these molecular chaperones that I talked about, and I've talked about heat shop proteins.
For years and I love them.
These are these molecular These are molecules or chaperoons that assist in protein folding and repair and basically they get RELI exercise and then they run around and look for damage proteins and they band them into the correct shape and then they hang around the cell to actually protect
against further damage. So every time you're exercising, you're increasing the amount of janitors or workhorses within the cell to and that and all these heat shock proteins help to prevent protein aggregation, which is that major issue we talked about in neurodegenera of diseases. Another reason that exercise is useful is it reduces oxidative stress and inflammation. So on one side of the ledger it's improving the cleanup and
then the other thing the amount of damage. So we know that exercise produces free radicals, but it also stimulates our antioxidant defense system and particularly are in dodgenous antioxidant defense, so it upregulates glutotherrem parioxidase, catalas and superoxide dismutate the special forces of your antioxidant defense system.
And it's been.
Shown that strength training, anaerobic exercise or endurance exercise lowers levels of pro inframetory side of kinds such as interluting six TNF alphon and C reactive protein, and therefore it reduces in humleostasis system. And we know that exercise also increases the activity of anti inflammatory side accounts such as interlooking ten and then exercise. The fourth way that it
works is it supports our mitochondrial health. So our mitochondria they generate atp or energy and aging in personal function, and that leads to protein damage from excess free radicals. We know that exercise not only enhances our mitochondrial efficiency, therefore reducing protein ox oxidation and helping to support proteostasis, but high intensity infoltraining actually drives out genesis brands spanking new batteries in your sales. So exercise for me is
an absolute cornerstone for proteo stasis. But there's other things that we can do to maintain proteostasis. Now, because this is all of our proteins. Eating a high quality protein diet is really really key. And I've said this many times before, but I'll say it again, especially as we get older, and when you're sick, you need more protein,
so we develop anabolic resistance as we get older. Now, the old rdies referenced are the daily intakes that they were not point eight grams per kilogram of protein of not pointy eight grams of protein per kilogram of body weights right now, those referenced nutrient intakes are like fifty years old, and they were based on Dodge studies at the time, and most researchers now I say that that is way suboptimal. That we need between one point four and two to two point two grams per kilogram of
protein of our body weight. So for me at eighty kilos, that's about a to one hundred and sixty grams of protein, and especially as you get older, you need that upper limit.
And making sure you're having good quality proteins and meat is generally the best source if you're vegan, making sure that you are vegetarian, that you're combining just like rice and beans, and for a lot of people they also need to probably take some sort of protein supplement in a good quality, whether it's grass fed, wave protein or a pay protein if you're vegetarian or vegan.
And making sure you're.
Having enough loucine because lousing that stimulates muscle protein synthesis. You find that in eggs and dirty but also in legoons, and that will really help. So we've got to have that high protein diet and lots of people just do not eat enough protein, especially as we age, and this is an aging.
It should really underscore the importance of this.
Next is consuming anti inflammatory and antioxidant foods, so polyphenols and flavonoids that we find in berries, green tea, dark chocolate, but also fruits, lots of fruits and vegetables and gin. Seeing all of these things they sort of stress. We know the mega three fatty acids really reduce inflammation and
support brain proteo stasis. And curcumin which you get from turmeric and particularly when taken with black pepper or peppering, and that enhances autophagy, is anti inflammatory and reduce holding.
So making sure that.
We're having a good quality diet with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, things like berries, green tea, dark chocolate, gin, sing ginger, those sorts of things will really and turmeric our curcumin will really help. And then it's about getting an because that is critical for protein repair and maintenance. Most of our maintenance and repairer functions happen when we're sleep, and when we don't have good sleep, it disrupts utophagy
and it disrupts this chaperum protein function. Which then accelerates our protein damage. But in avoiding or minimizing your toxins right, whether that's from smoking, vaping, pollution, and heavy alcohol use, and they all increase oxidative stress leading to protein damage. And then ultra process foods, they contain lots of additives that are known to empower protein. It's another thing to really think about. And then some targeted supplements. Nac nacetyl
systein is an absolute cracking supplement. It supports gluedothion production that's the master or antioxidant in the body, and it protects proteins from oxidative stress.
I've talked about that before.
That's a mix of knack and glycing, the amino acid glycing, and research that I've talked about before shows that it's anti It improves our antioxidant status. It also enhances lifespan in mice. Not only does it improve antioxidant status, but so A couple of research papers of note for this one and the title of Atophogy and Aging Maintaining the Proteum through Exercise that was produced in twenty twelve, and
it showed that endurance exercise increases arious tissues. And other studies have shown that resistance training actually does the same thing.
And then another one about resistance training, the effect of resistance training on heat shop protein response heat shop protein seventy oxident of stress, inflammation, body composition, and metabolism in Middle Ages, basically showed that a resistance training increases heat chok protein, especially heat shop protein seventy, which is very very protective, and that actually reminded me of other ways to increase heat shok proteins. We know that sauna use,
regular sauna use, this is heat chok protein activity. And it was particularly the research that I've seen was twenty minutes at eighty degrees. Now this was in a traditional Finish sauna, and I really wrestled over this when I was getting a sauna because I wanted an infra red barrel and I actually couldn't find any research to see whether they actually did it, so I did my own experiment.
And what we know is that you need to increase your core body temperature by one degree in order to activate heat shock protein.
So lots of studies have shown that.
Being in there at seventy degrees on an infrared sauna for twenty minutes increase my core body temperature by more than one degree.
Now, this is an an equals one study.
If you're a little bit concerned if you've got an infrared SONA, certainly exercising beforehand and then getting into your infrared ZNA and then whacking up the heat that'll releasing those heat shot proteins. Other research has shown that a hot bath for about twenty minutes forty degrees centigrade hot bath, I'm not sure what that is in American money, must be around one hundred or so, but that activits heat
shot proteins as well. Another thing that activits heat shot proteins and also cold shot proteins is cold water exposure. And it's really it's thinking about these things, right. So we know that exercise, heat exposure, and cold exposure in various different species all heat chock proteins and then they
up regulate these protective mechanisms. So there's a number of things that we can do in terms of nutrition, in terms of supplements, exercise, hate exposure, and cold exposure to help to minimize this loss of proteostasis proteins running well. So that's it for this week, folks. Catch you next time, and just remember a strong body starts at the cellular level, See you next time.