Figure A.2 A Good Tip Your chromosomes have small caps on the ends called telomeres, which are like those little plastic tips on shoelaces. Every time a cell reproduces, that telomere gets a little shorter, just as the shoelace tip wears off with time. You need a substance called telomerase to rebuild the cap.
The amount of telomerase depends on your genetics, but we’re now starting to see that we can influence the size of those little tips, the telomeres. For example, researchers have found that mothers with chronically ill children have shortened telomeres, indicating that chronic stress can have a huge influence on how cells divide – or fail to. The implication is that if you can reduce the effects that stress has on you, through such techniques as meditation, you can increase your chance of rebuilding the telomeres and decrease the odds of having your cells die and contribute to age-related problems.
Yes, you’re stuck with the genes you were given, just as you’re stuck with the decisions your parents made about where you grew up, and you can’t return your genes for a complete refund. You can, however, change the way they function. We’re starting to uncover more and more ways that you can change how your genes function, which we’ll detail in the following chapter about your memory. For example, just ten minutes of walking turns on a gene that decreases the rate of cancer growth, and resveratrol (the ingredient found in red wine) turns on a gene that slows or stops a dangerous inflammatory process that happens inside your body. And in the very near future, we’re going to be able to develop medicines tailored to individuals whose genes work differently from others’.
Because each of us has a unique genetic fingerprint, the detection, prevention and treatment of diseases can be difficult. But as we start to unlock the ways that we and modern medicine can dramatically manipulate our genes, we’re going to start seeing how we can make our genes work for us, not against us. Perhaps the best example of how genes affect us is our memory, which is goal one – in part so you can remember the rest.
Chapter 1 Develop a Memorable Memory
YOU Test: Mind Game
GCHC F ANA BHD FDHEGHEHNEDBNA F BHGCHDE BGAHECHN FGNB A BDCACEGH FH FHDN HBCE BDNEHGNH FGAC FNCHDE AHAGFDBHA BCE FHDANHC FGDHA EHBNCHGDGFNEHB E BDHCACHD FGF AHNE B EHNHNGBGDA FHCEHD FHE AGHGCBNBNCAHD F BNE AH FDGHC
Photocopy this page so that you can do the test twice. Ask somebody to time you. As quickly and accurately as you can, take a pencil and cross out all the Hs in the above pattern, moving left to right and starting from the top line. Average the time it took on both of your tries. This test helps measure mental acuity.
Results:
Count the number of Hs you knocked out. The total number is thirty-five. See where you fell with the averages below.
| Age | Average Seconds | Number Missed |
| Under 30 | 40 | 1 |
| 30–45 | 41 | 1 |
| 45–50 | 42 | 2 |
| 50–55 | 43 | 2 |
| 55–60 | 44 | 2 |
| 60–65 | 46 | 2 |
| 66–70 | 46 | 2 |
| 71–75 | 47 | 3 |
| 76–80 | 50 | 3 |
| 81–85 | 51 | 3 |
| 86–90 | 52 | 2 |
| 91–95 | 53 | 2 |
Credit: Letter cancellation used with permission from Bob Uttl.
Our brains really do have a way of messing with our minds.
One moment, you can be spitting out the names of your entire third-year class, the score of the 1974 FA Cup final, the colour dress you wore to the sixth-form prom, or the entire script from your favorite Seinfeld episode. The next minute, you can’t think of the name of your cat.
Call them what you want – senior moments, doomsday to dementia – but the truth is that we all experience these neurological hiccups as we age. And we all wonder exactly what they mean. Some of us put them down to stress, fatigue or some kind of neurological overload that’s caused by the ogre who signs our pay cheques, while others worry about whether a moment of forgetfulness means that we have a first-class ticket on the express train to Alzheimer’s.
No matter what we may think causes our decline in mental acuity, most people share a pretty big assumption about our grey matter: either our brains are genetically determined to be razor sharp for the duration, or we’re eventually going to live life putting on our underwear last. That is, we believe that our genes, the very first Major Ager, completely control our neurological destiny.
That simply isn’t true.
Vice Is Nice
Though there’s some evidence that nicotine (in the form of a patch, not the kind you smoke) plays some role in improving awareness, research also supports the memory-boosting effects of a less dangerous vice: caffeine. About five cups of coffee a day protects against cognitive impairment from both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. (Remember, if you experience side effects like migraines, abnormal heartbeats, anxiety, or acid reflux, the benefits may not be worth the side effects.) By keeping you alert, caffeine will also help you assimilate knowledge and deposit it in your memory bank efficiently, improving the chance that you’ll recall it correctly.
While many diseases and conditions have genetic elements to them, memory conditions have some of the strongest genetic indicators. For example, a PET (positron-emission tomography) scan, which records images of the brain as it functions, reveals evidence of early Alzheimer’s when it identifies that the brain is misusing energy. This abnormality is caused by illness of the mitochondria (more details on this Major Ager on here), which is genetically determined. But the truth is that even if your genes have decided to give you a life of serious forgetfulness, you do have the ability to control those genes so your mind is strong, your brain functions at full power, and you remember everything from the crucial details of your life to whether or not you turned off the oven – even when your birthday candles reach triple digits. Plus, we have lots of data from twin studies saying that less than 50 percent of memory is inherited, meaning that if you get a head start on the action steps we’re going to cover, you can alter how your genes are expressed. In the end, genetics loads the gun, but your lifestyle pulls the trigger.
Clearly, the brain is the most complex organ in your body. In fact, if the brain were simpler, we wouldn’t be smart enough to understand it. But we are. Think of your brain as the city’s electrical grid. Your brain’s nerve cells, or neurons, are constantly firing and receiving messages in much the same way that power plants send signals and homes and businesses receive them. Power may originate from a main source, but the connections then branch out every which way throughout the city. Your brain functions the same way: messages are sent from one neuron to another across your neurological grid. When those neurons successfully communicate with one another through the sending and receiving of neurological impulses, your brain can file away your memories.