COFFEE and LONGEVITY (GOOD NEWS!)

I’ve written in the past about telomeres, a word derived from the Greek telos (end) and mere (part). Telomeres are essential components of every living cell and affect how we age. They are the caps at the end of each strand of our chromosomal chains of DNA, protecting the chromosome much like the plastic tip of a shoelace keeps the lace from fraying and less able to do its job.

Quickly, for some arithmetic. Each of your cells has 46 chromosomes, and with a telomere at the end of every chromosome. That means 92 telomeres per cell, 15 trillion cells in your body. With 15 trillion cells in your body x 92 telomeres, let’s agree you have many, many telomeres controlling how you age!

Numbers like these offer us a better idea of the importance of telomeres, which shorten as we age. Telomere shortening on a cellular level, manifests as everything you know about getting old, from gray hair to creaky joints, from hearing loss to your libido, as distant memory rather than an active pleasure. People whose telomeres are measurably shorter than normal for their age group are more prone to chronic illnesses of all kinds and generally decline into an earlier death.

Two Causes of Shortened Telomeres

There are two primary reasons for prematurely shortened telomeres: genetics and lifestyle choices. However—and this is very important—patients genetically at risk for chronic illness due to shortened telomeres can dramatically reduce those risks by careful attention to their lifestyle choices.

Think of telomeres as the aging clock of every cell in your body. Scientists agree that telomere length is a predictive value for longevity.

Unfortunately, insurance companies are less than delighted when asked to pay for anything preventive and have yet to cover telomere tests as a benefit. Your WholeHealth Chicago practitioner can order telomere testing. The out-of-pocket cost is $199, although prices change frequently. Here’s a sample report.

Coffee and Your Telomeres

Several recent studies have shown that drinking 3-4 cups of coffee every day can actually add years to your life by a positive effect on your telomere length and overall heart health.

Here’s one study from Global Cardiology tracking the coffee habits of over almost 450,000 Brits, male and female. There was a dramatic reduction in all forms of heart disease and stroke, including arrhythmias like the very common atrial fibrillation (in which patients are endlessly but mistakenly warned to ‘give up coffee’).

Totally wrong advice.

Not only were there less “cardiac events” among the coffee drinkers but because of an apparent effect on telomeres, coffee drinkers lived longer than non-coffee drinkers (4-5 years) and enjoyed a slower biologic aging process.

Another very interesting study from the journal Nutrients (Nutrients 2025, 17(15), 2558), showed that 3-5 cups a day consistently was related to decreased mortality, a lower risk of major chronic illnesses including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, cognitive decline and respiratory illness.

So, being a coffee drinker myself (4 cups a day), I thought I’d share the good news as the first Health Tip of the New Year.

A Follow Up

Now, an interesting follow up of an older Health Tip written back in August concerning the relationship between lithium deficiency and Alzheimer’s Disease. This weekend, listening to “Science Friday” on WBEZ, an Alzheimer researcher elaborates on this, adding a study that I was unaware of. Namely, one area of Denmark with high levels of lithium in the water had the lowest levels of dementia. He talked about how lithium prevents amyloid binding in animal models and how lithium could be used to treat early-stage dementia.

When the show’s host (Ira Flatow) sensibly asked, “Shouldn’t everyone be taking some form of lithium?” The researcher hedged, “Need more tests…safety…too early..”

Well, it is estimated that somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000-600,000 new cases of Alzheimer’s Disease are diagnosed every year among people 65 and older, higher in women than men. If this can be reduced by an over-the-counter nutritional supplement, a natural product to boot, then why wait?

Be well,

David Edelberg, MD