AGELESS BEAUTY Why looking good is not just skin deep

The final part of our brilliant anti- ageing series examines the breakthroughs that could help us stay younger, for longer…

T’S THAT time of year when we make resolutions. And, if you’re hoping to improve your health in 2021, I’ve got some science- based tips for you, plus insights into the biology of ageing, that will help you choose which resolutions are worth keeping, and which to ditch.

The emerging biology of ageing shows that the same processes that give rise to wrinkles and grey hair also make us frail and forgetful, and put us at risk of diseases such as cancer, heart problems and dementia. Slowing these biological processes will help you look good and keep you healthier for longer.

We’d all like to look as good as Jane Seymour does at 69. Real anti- ageing drugs could allow us to look that good at 79, or 89, or even older – and, most importantly, would mean our bodies and minds would be as youthful and supple on the inside as our skin on the outside.

Let’s start by looking at one key villain in ageing biology: a process called “chronic inflammation”. on”.

Normally, inflammation is a very important process in n our bodies. It starts when a part of your body is in distress. When you injure yourself, or when an infection is detected, nearby cells will dial 999 by sending out molecules which call for help. This attracts the immune system to fight off the invaders, and begin the healing process.

In youth, inflammation is rapid, powerful and, crucially, temporary. The “chronic” inflammation of old age is a constant low level alert, with your immune system suffering from a kind of paranoia which means it never quite stands down.

And this basically accelerates the ageing process, damaging our bodies, reducing the immune system’s capacity to remove cells behaving badly and, paradoxically, even reducing its effectiveness at fighting infection.

Trying to stave off chronic inflammation might sound like an unusual new year’s resolution – but it’s right at the top of my list. So, how can you do it in practice?

The first thing you can do to reduce levels of inflammation in your body is to follow some health advice you’ve already heard many times before – but, one thing I found in writing Ageless, my book about ageing biology, is, even “boring” advice isn’t so boring when you understand the science behind it.

First, don’t smoke. Smoking is obviously bad for your lungs, increasing the risk of lung cancer and other diseases.

But did you know it also increases the risk of cancer in other parts of your body, accelerates the furring up of your arteries responsible for heart disease, and can even accelerate wrinkles and hair greying?

Basically, cigarettes speed up the ageing process – and a key smoking gun, if you will, is chronic inflammation.

The chemicals in tobacco smoke put your immune system into overdrive throughout the body. We can see this because blood tests for inflammation give higher results in smokers than non- smokers.

The good news is that quitting can bring things back to normal fairly rapidly. You can expect your levels of inflammation to drop

SNO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE: Brushing your teeth regularly and quitting cigarettes can cut ageing

back to normal about five years after you quit – and so will your risk of heart disease.

Maintaining a healthy body weight with a balanced diet and regular exercise also reduces chronic inflammation.

We now know that “visceral” fat – the type of fat stored between your organs, which gives rise to a fat belly – emits inflammatory molecules that, again, basically speed up the ageing process.

UBCUTANEOUS fat, so called because it sits below ( sub-) your skin (- cutaneous), and is usually responsible for large hips and bottom, is less dangerous – but, since you can’t control where a particular calorie is laid down, shedding a few pounds would probably be good for most of us.

Exercise can help indirectly, by burning some of that inflammatory fat. It also helps directly, because moving muscle emits antiinflammatory molecules, while stationary muscle emits inflammatory ones.

Since your muscles, in combination, are the largest organ in your body, their influence can have a substantial effect on inflammation overall. If you’ve got a largely sedentary lifestyle, even a 10- minute walk a day can make a huge difference to your healthy lifespan. Building up to half an hour of moderate exercise a day can pay enormous dividends.

There are more reasons that not smoking, eating well, and getting enough exercise can effectively slow down ageing, from preventing mutations in your cells that can give rise to cancer, to improving repair and replacement of the collagen that holds our bodies together.

However, though you’re unlikely to have missed those particular health tips, some of the other health advice relating to ageing is far less obvious.

An unlikely- sounding contender for a new year’s resolution which could slow your ageing is brushing your teeth.

Scientists and doctors first noticed that people with good dental hygiene seemed to be protected from heart attacks in the 1990s, but those early studies drew scepticism because they couldn’t demonstrate that poor oral health caused heart problems.

However, subsequent work has given us more confidence that there is a connection – and that connection is, again, probably chronic inflammation. Tooth decay and gum disease are caused by bacteria in your mouth and, once established, they’re very hard to get rid of.

That means your immune system is engaged in a constant, low- level skirmish in your teeth and gums – in other words, chronic, mild inflammation again, which accelerates ageing. So brushing and flossing regularly not only help keep your teeth in good shape but may head off ageing.

Writing a book on ageing biology has encouraged me to look after my health in lots of different ways.

First, an understanding of the science makes health tips, obvious and not- soobvious, more compelling, because you appreciate the biology behind them.

However, it’s also about the cutting- edge science that would allow us to develop medicines to slow down the ageing process itself.

Some of these treatments might emulate the effects of eating less or exercising more,