How Senescent Cells Are “Inflammaging” Your Body With Disease (And What To Do About It)

Possessing systemic (whole body) inflammation puts you at risk for several unwanted diseases.

I’ve recommended a variety of approaches towards treating it, such as grounding your feet in the bare earth and supplementing with Metformin.

But there was one cause of inflammation I haven’t addressed yet and it’s hiding right in your cells.

That’s right – some of your cells may be the reason why your body is in a state of chronic inflammation.

These damaged cells are in a state scientists are now referring to as “senescence”.

What Is Senescence?

The commonly accepted definition of senescence is the following:

“Cellular senescence is a permanent state of cell cycle arrest that promotes tissue remodeling during development and after injury, but can also contribute to the decline of the regenerative potential and function of tissues, to inflammation, and to tumorigenesis in aged organisms. “

But how is it caused in the first place?

Senescence is usually triggered when the telomeres located at the end of your chromosomes are damaged.

When your telomeres become shorter due to the damage, that’s when you are at greater risk for a reduced lifespan and several age-associated diseases.

This can happen in a variety of ways:

  • Long-term exposure to chemicals in food and water
  • Too much UV exposure
  • Epigenetic factors
  • Mitochondrial dysfunction
  • Cancer-promoting mutations
  • Radiation/chemotherapy
  • Metabolic stress (Obesity, Insulin Resistance etc)
  • Poor lifestyle factors (crappy diet, lack of exercise, poor sleep, use of drugs and alcohol, etc.)

The schematic below summarizes how senescence is directly connected to the negative health effects associated with aging:

(Source)

Are Senescent Cells “Good” Or “Bad”?

Don’t misunderstand what I am saying: Cellular senescence is a necessary function for our survival.

Senescence is useful as it prevents the genomes of the damaged cells from being perpetuated further.

And much like acute inflammation (which is needed to heal bodily injuries and tissue damage), senescence is not necessarily a bad thing.

We need it to maintain tissue homeostasis (biological system balance and coherence) and allow the physiological development of our bodies to evolve over time.

But where all of this goes wrong is when these senescent cells refuse to die (via apoptosis) and acquire what is called a “senescence-associated secretory phenotype” (SASP).

In other words, if we don’t eat clean, exercise, and avoid sugar and alcohol, (the fat MF-er lifestyle which far too many people in the West are living), senescent cells begin to overwhelm the homeostatic mechanisms of our primary biological systems.

When this happens, the cells secrete pro-inflammatory cytokines that trigger the body’s inflammatory response.

As I’ve already written here and many times before, inflammation is the key ingredient to ALL of the diseases of aging.

This type of inflammation is also known as “inflammaging”:

“Inflammaging” describes the low-grade, chronic, systemic inflammation in aging, in the absence of overt infection (“sterile” inflammation), and is a highly significant risk factor for both morbidity and mortality in the elderly people”.

The senescent cells possessing the SASP are also directly linked to diseases such as diabetes, as they elevate the production of IL-6 and IL-1.

In fact, diabetic patients with a lot of adipose tissue (i.e. fat) will find many of the senescent cells accumulating in that area.

Remember, visceral body fat is the most inflammatory substance in the human body.

The higher your body fat, the more systemic inflammation you possess.

This primes your body for one of the many diseases of aging, as it has to continue to adapt (negatively) from being regularly overrun by inflammatory cytokines.

Now you know why I am constantly reminding people to live a fully optimized lifestyle devoid of systemic inflammation.

Unfortunately modernized societal living exposes us to a great many inflammatory mechanisms both environmentally (air we breathe, plastics we’re exposed to, EDC’s) and physically from the GMO food, over consumption of sugar and alcohol and lack of exercise(resistance and cardiovascular training).

For this reason alone, science is focused on creating novel therapies and medications that are engineered to specifically target senescent cells and safely eliminate them from the body (without affecting non-senescent cells).

This is entirely within the realm of possibility due to the unique characteristics of these cells:

“…increased cell size, enzymatic activity of the lysosomal hydrolase senescence-associated β-galactosidase, upregulation of prosurvival pathways to resist apoptosis and the development of a SASP”

Additionally, it is far more feasible to do this compared to changing the phenotypic expression of the SASP:

“Unlike agents that ameliorate the SASP, it may be feasible to administer senolytic treatments intermittently, perhaps for a day or two every few months or once a year during periods of good health.

Since, unlike cancer cells or microbes, senescent cells do not divide, resistance to senolytics of the type encountered in treating cancer or infectious diseases is unlikely to be a problem”

So what has proven effective up until this point?

Pharmaceutical & Natural Efforts To Eliminate Senescent Cells

Drugs and compounds meant to treat the problem of senescence are known as “senolytic” therapies.

As of this writing, we’re already seeing great promise in the progress being made.

In a study done on aged mice with senescent heart cells, using senolytics helped restore heart health and reverse the “age” of their hearts so they started working like hearts seen in healthy young mice.

Peptides have also proven effective in studies involving mice:

“Regular infusions of the [FOXO4-p53 peptide] can destroy senescent cells and improve health in aged mice.

Hair growth, fitness stamina and healthy kidney function were all vastly improved within 1 month of peptide treatment in fast-aging mice.

No negative side effects of the peptide treatment were noted.”

The same can be said for Metformin, Rapamycin and Fenofibrate, an FDA-approved drug that targets lipid metabolism.

That Metformin drug just keeps rearing its spectacularly beautiful head doesn’t it? 😉

But I want to direct my and your attention towards a few natural compounds that have gained a lot of interest for their powerful senolytic activity.

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+)

NAD+ is gaining a lot of attention in the medical community for its contribution towards slowing – if not reversing – the progression of aging-associated diseases:

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is an essential cofactor in all living cells that is involved in fundamental biological processes.

NAD+ depletion has been associated with hallmarks of aging and may underlie a wide-range of age-related diseases, such as metabolic disorders, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.

Emerging evidence implicates that elevation of NAD+ levels may slow or even reverse the aspects of aging and also delay the progression of age-related diseases.

NAD+ works by simulating the SIRT-1 gene pathway, which then triggers the production of mitochondria (and provides cells with the energy they need).

This pathway is also activated through intense exercise, intermitting fasting and calorie restriction.

However, this doesn’t mean you should go consuming vast quantities of NAD+.

In fact, recent research has shown that boosting NAD+ levels too high may make senescent cells more “aggressively inflammatory”.

The ideal solution to this problem involves administering NAD+ in conjunction with senolytic agents.

This will allow an individual to remove the senescent cells from their body, while increasing cellular NAD+ levels at the same time.

And I’m about to reveal the best senolytic agents we’ve found to date for expanding your health and ultimately your life.

All of them were featured in a recently published review examining polyphenols for their senolytic activity:

“Initially, these compounds gained researchers’ attention due to their ability to extend the lifespan of simple model organisms.

More recently, some of them have been proposed as senolytic agents to protect against age-related disorders, such as cancer, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases.”

Resveratrol

You read that right – the same compound commonly found in red wine is a surprisingly effective senolytic agent.

Here’s some of the amazing things it can do:

  • Lower the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (due to SASP) and increase levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines
  • Increases SIRT-1 expression, which is how it mimics caloric restriction (and increases your lifespan)
  • Reverses important markers of Alzheimer’s disease
  • Restore your blood pressure to normal

Quercetin

Quercetin has blown up over the past year, as research found it was an extraordinary effective senolytic agent when combined with the leukemia drug Dastanib.

Numerous studies done in mice have shown that Quercetin and Dastanib (Q+D) accelerates the clearance of senescent cells, improves physical activity and extends lifespan significantly.

What’s really fascinating is how these results were seen in both aging and young healthy mice!

And in a clinical pilot study involving 14 patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), a three-week regimen of Q+D lead to a clinically significant improvement in their ability to walk longer and faster.

Curcumin

While Curcumin hasn’t been as extensively studied as the other two polyphenols, the preliminary results are just as impressive.

When human senescent intervetebral disc cells were treated with curcumin, several senolytic effects took place.

Not only was there an increase in the elimination of senescent cells and a decrease in SASP expression, but it also INDUCED apoptosis in the senescent cells!

Fisetin

Last but certainly not least, we have a flavonoid that’s been proven to be a potent senolytic.

A 2018 study done in aging mice, fisetin administration lead to several positive outcomes:

“Fisetin reduced senescence in a subset of cells in murine and human adipose tissue, demonstrating cell-type specificity.

Administration of fisetin to wild-type mice late in life restored tissue homeostasis, reduced age-related pathology, and extended median and maximum lifespan.

The natural product fisetin has senotherapeutic activity in mice and in human tissues.

Late life intervention was sufficient to yield a potent health benefit. These characteristics suggest the feasibility to translation to human clinical studies.”

The BEST Supplements For Ejecting Senescent Cells From Your Body

Unfortunately, it can be extremely difficult (and costly) to source these individual ingredients all by yourself.

And as I’ve said many times before in my writings, do you trust supplement company manufacturers knowing about proprietary blends etc?

Plus, you need to know how to combine them properly, and at what dosages to get the most senolytic effect possible.

I’m very fortunate to say that my good friends at Liv Health have created two MUST-HAVE formulations to solve the problem of senescence.

BODY SHIELD

Body Shield is jam-packed with the best polyphenols around to address cellular senescence: 100 mg of fisetin, 400 mg of quercetin, 50 mg of curcumin and a lot more.

Through inducing apoptosis in the senescent cells, you can safely get rid of them while also making sure your body isn’t harmed by the dying cells.

It’s an essential supplement for keeping you protected from the negative effects of inflammaging!

AGELESS AUTOPHAGY

Ageless Autophagy has one powerful ingredient to help reverse the effects of aging: 3, 4-dimethyoxychalcone (DMC).

DMC encourages ‘cleansing and recycling’ of cells, which means that unwanted and harmful cells built up over time are removed from the body.

Autophagy helps to decrease oxidative stress, increase genomic stability (which aids in the prevention of cancer), increase metabolism, and increase the elimination of waste.

Both of these supplements are essential for people who regularly fast and live insulin controlled lifestyles.

Think of them as extra cellular fumigation and cleansing from the normal biochemical processes created by fasting and suppressed insulin signaling from lower carbs/kcals etc.

Both Monica and I will be adding these supplements to our daily arsenals forever.

The best part about grabbing these supplements is by using my affiliate code ‘Jay’ and signing up for their “Subscribe and Save” program, you will get 30% off your order FOR LIFE!

If you want to get your hands on these amazing senolytic supplements, CLICK HERE to order them!

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