Epigenetics and Living Younger: Changing the Ways Our Genes Operate

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to everyone joining us today on our podcast. You're listening to the Living to 100 Club, and I'm your host Joseph Casciani. Before we introduce our guest, I'd like to remind everyone that I'm available for public speaking events, particularly to community organizations and senior groups. I'd love to talk to others about aging well and making it over those hurdles. There's an option on my website to book a call to discuss a presentation. I also offer one-on-one coaching for help bouncing back from struggles and setbacks. You can see this option as well on my website. And one last item of self-promotion: if you're looking for a consultant or trainer on clinical topics like dementia or depression, this is my wheelhouse. So feel free to contact me if there's a need in your group or organization. Contact options are on my website again, livingto100.club. Now on to our podcast. Our guest today is Dr. Jillian Lockitch, who'll be talking about her book, Growing Older and Living Younger, and also how to break the link between biological aging and chronological aging. First, a little background on Dr. Lockitch. Dr. Jillian Lockitch is a dual-certified specialist physician and medical professor emerita at the University of British Columbia. During her 25-year academic medical practice, her research focused on biochemistry, nutrition, and genetics. She authored 57 peer-reviewed publications and 14 book chapters. On retirement, she switched her focus from science to the arts and established a second career writing online about theater, food and wine, and the art. She also writes travel blogs on her ballroom dance cruising around the world. Short time later, she encountered a company with innovative genetic science-based focus on health and beauty, promoting healthy aging through applied epigenetics. She then launched a third career as a network entrepreneur, helping people to age youthfully from both inside out and outside in. Dr. Lakic, welcome to our program today.

Oh, thank you, Dr. Joe. It's a pleasure to be here.

Great. Glad to have you with us. Tell us briefly about the journey. You've had such a long career. Tell us briefly about the journey that brought you to where you are today.

Well, I guess there were many pivotal points. And I think the key event was when I decided on my 70th birthday that I would embrace the science of epigenetics and start a business as a network professional in wellness and beauty. So how did that all come about? Well, at 55, I was sort of had it all, wonderful career in medicine. I was married with a wonderful man, had 3 great kids. And literally, you know, before I went into medical school, and gosh, way back, I had just read Betty Friedan's book and basically realized that I wanted to have it all. I wanted to have a happy family and I wanted to have a career, and I managed to achieve that. And then a whole bunch of things started to go wrong. I lost my husband to cancer at a premature age. My kids had sort of moved away to study in the US and in Ontario, and my mother passed away literally in front of my eyes, and I, I couldn't resuscitate her. So a series of events started to change that idyllic existence that I had, and I decided to retire from medicine. Largely because I was uncomfortable in a way at how medical practice had evolved into a situation where we were thinking about people as their organs or their body systems that had gone wrong and not able to sort of step back and take a holistic view of an individual as a person. And so I decided to switch from medicine and go into developing the art side of, of me, as you mentioned, and started my website in arts and theater and travel. And then unfortunately, I had taken up Bórum dancing as my hobby, and I was having a wonderful time developing a new network of friends through ballroom dancing and ballroom dance cruising until I had a calamitous problem where I developed spinal stenosis and had severe sciatica that for almost 5 months kept me immobile and depressed. I was unable to walk, couldn't sit comfortably. There was— it was just excruciating pain, and it ended up in me having emergency spinal surgery. And when I recovered from that spinal surgery episode, I had gained 40 pounds. I was in really poor health. And I realized that if I did not change the way I was aging, I was doomed to have a, a shortened and not very healthy life. And so I undertook a rehabilitation program that basically was aimed at restoring me to my healthy target weight, look, developing a mindset of I can do it, I will be healthy, I will age well. And I basically undertook that sort of journey, which took me several years. It certainly wasn't an overnight achievement. And during the course of that event, I discovered the science of epigenetics and realized that each of us has the internal power, the biological power, to change the way our genes operate at the cellular level and, and affect our aging in that way. And so as a result of the success of my journey, to health, back to health, and to back to my target weight, to back to my optimistic, I-can-do-it, achievement-oriented mindset, I decided to write my book, which is called Growing Older, Living Younger: The Science of Aging Gracefully and the Art of Retiring Comfortably. And it's built around what I call the 7 pillars of healthy aging. Starting from, you know, what is your basic genetics and what can you do about that, looking at nutrition, physical activity, everything to do with your body, the physical aspects of it, healthy aging of your skin, which is the major defense organ that we have, keeping oneself challenged and occupied mentally, and then realizing that you're part of a community and the importance of networking. And so I put those sort of 7 pillars into an encounter, discussion of, of my journey, and that was the book. And then I realized that I could share this information and what I'd learned through my podcast. So I started the Growing Older Living Younger podcast, bringing in experts in various areas like yourself to share their wisdom as to how to grow old and live younger.

Yeah, that's, um, that's fascinating, Jill, because it sounds like the discovery or the connection with epigenetics was really fortuitous for you and likely fortuitous for anyone who encounters your work and your podcast. How does this How does this field impact us, epigenetics? You described it briefly, but what is it and how does it— what does it matter to us?

Well, you know, it's really fascinating to me with my long career in medicine. When I thought about genetics and when I sort of taught genetics many, many years ago, we were really thinking about the principle of, you know, one gene, one protein. And there were autosomal dominant or recessive genes, and for a disease to manifest, you have two copies of the particular recessive gene. So it was all based on knowing the sort of genetic mutation that was responsible for creating a disease. And then in 2003, when the Human Genome Project was completed, it became evident that only a small percentage of our DNA, which is our biological, our genetic blueprint, actually codes for those proteins, and the other 98% of it is responsible for regulating the way those genes work, whether they make more proteins or less proteins. And because that other 98% is outside the DNA coding for a specific gene. So that's where epigenetics is, outside the genes. So essentially what that is, is being able to influence how our genes operate by a number of factors that you can actually affect by modifying your lifestyle.

I see. So as you said, the genes are the biological blueprint, but how they're expressed can be up to us, as you say, by lifestyle factors. Is that what you're talking about then?

That is. I mean, if you think about it, we've known for years that exposure to sunlight, excess sunlight, will change the way that the genes in your skin operate, and you'll see the difference between somebody who has, you know, regularly gone out in the sun and tanned, and how much quicker they tend to develop things like wrinkles or just a sort of a drier looking skin. So that's one example. One of the ways in which smoking causes ill health is by changing expression of, we think, certain genes you know, that can result in cancer.

Yeah, so I recall this study by NIH, National Institute of Health, where they're talking about longevity and how genes and our genetics play a role, but maybe only 30% of our longevity, and the other 70% is really due to lifestyle factors. Is this related to what you're talking about?

It is.

How genes are expressed?

Yeah, it is exactly, and I think one of the ways in which this sort of point was made quite clearly is in studies of identical twins who, you know, have the absolutely identical genetic makeup or the genetic blueprint, and yet depending on, you know, how they live, what lifestyle choices they make, they may end up looking quite different. And what makes them look quite different is the epigenetic changes to, you know, to the way their genes work depending on what sort of factors have impacted it. So that's exactly what it's all about.

Yeah, that's fascinating. So if we have a genetic predisposition toward a certain disease, a certain medical condition, Are you saying that that is susceptible to change and we can maybe modify the risk of that genetic predisposition?

I think you— one has to differentiate between diseases or problems that are caused actually by mutations in the gene itself. So epigenetics does not change the structure of the gene. In any way. What it simply does is regulate how that gene may or may not be expressed. So you can't— I'm not aware that there are ways, for example, if you have a gene for something like cystic fibrosis or something, epigenetic regulation isn't going to be able to affect that.

Or Huntington's, yeah, okay, yeah.

Yeah, so what we're talking about are the sort of multi-factorial kinds of things, you know, like weight, like deposition of body fat, like a regulation of lipid metabolism, cardiovascular functions. So when— so it was really interesting, the study that was reported in, I guess, 2009 in Science looking at how caloric restriction enhances longevity and calms down or delays the development of, of the so-called age-related disorders. When scientists looked at what was the effect on the genome that caloric restriction, or, you know, lower calories, had that related to longevity, what they found was that you have to look at it as in a series of clusters of genes. So for example, if you're looking at a change in bone metabolism, it's not a question of changing the operation of, you know, the genes that promote osteoblasts or osteoclasts, the cells that make or destroy bone. It's a question of looking at the whole cluster of genes that involve bone metabolism, which could include things like the absorption of calcium or you know, vitamin D intake. So it's fascinating. So we've gone beyond the sort of single gene thing when you're talking about aging-related disorders. You're looking at an orchestra of genes functioning together to either create a situation where aging is not going so well, or you are aging in a healthy fashion.

Sure, these are the clusters that could influence this.

Yeah, and you know, I have to say that I, as somebody who sort of spent a long time in medicine, going back and reading about the huge changes in the amount of information that has come out, you know, since the Human Genome Project was completed, I mean, I understand why people are becoming so super, super specialized because it's you know, just learning the biochemical pathways is, is just so incredibly complex. So before I wrote my final exam in medical biochemistry, I remember sort of going through my book, which was all about biochemical pathways and understanding, and it so happens that the question that came up in, in one of the written papers was on how certain of the steroid hormones were constructed and it involved learning about, you know, how cholesterol was formed. And I was just thinking the other day that were I to have to write that now, it would be so much more complicated because there would be all the factors that I would have to consider that modified the enzymes that went into sort of creating these particular metabolites. I don't, you know, I don't think I would pass a medical biochemistry exam today.

Yeah, so really an explosion of information, useful scientific data about longevity and about the risk factors. So we're really talking about aging very differently from the way our parents aged, right? I can see that we know so much more, and maybe if our parents knew what we know they could have lived longer as well. Is that something you'd agree with?

Well, I think it's not only knowledge, it's mindset and belief and the desire to do something. So for example, you know, we have— I have sort of talked to people about the fact that we really need, as well as the macronutrients, you know, like proteins and fats to build our bodies and keep our cells healthy, we need a whole bunch of the micronutrients, the vitamins, the minerals, the trace elements. And several people have sort of said, you know, they would like to start making sure that they have adequate amounts by taking a nutritional supplement. And it always amazes me when I sort of check in regularly with them, how people will say, oh, you know, I forget to take something, or you know, it's, I mean to take it, I take it for a couple of days and then I forget. And what that tells me is that the importance is not necessarily to know what sort of lifestyle changes you need to make in order to become more healthy, but to figure out how do you make them become a habit. And so that's why I think probably the most important thing that any of us can develop is we want to know what our target is. What is our goal? What does it mean to us to age healthily? And then what are the things that we need to change? And then most important, how are we going to implement that and make sure that that becomes a habit and a part of our daily life?

Sure, the information is not enough to change behavior. I mean, people are hearing from their physicians to quit smoking and how dangerous it is, but that doesn't necessarily change behavior, right?

Yeah, right.

Yeah. So what are your, what are your keys to aging? I, I'd like to get back to these nutrients in a few minutes and the supplements, but What are your keys to aging healthily? It is mindset, as you say, and adopting the information that we know is relevant for us. But what are your recommendations to the listener on this podcast to healthy aging?

Well, there are obviously a number of things that we have to consider. So if we just think about the physical aspects of our bodies, so we need to keep moving, we need to be active. And in order to be active, you don't have to go jog or be a marathoner, just making sure that you are walking, you know, actively for a given amount of time. You need to be able to sleep well, and that is something that I think a lot of people struggle with. And then one of the other things that I've realized is really important is just something that we don't normally think about, and that is posture. You know, we see so many people walking around clutching a cell phone and looking down as they walk, and I personally realized after years of working at a computer that I was sort of developing this sort of hunched posture, which is really bad for you in many ways. So just being aware of how you hold your body. So then, of course, aspects of mindset, and I believe in developing an optimistic mindset of gratitude. So one of the things that I do every day as I pop out of bed, go and put on my coffee, is I, I have a gratitude affirmation. So I am every day grateful to the surgeons that fixed my back and enabled me to you know, get back to dancing and become active and healthy as I was before that spinal injury. And I make a point of saying to myself every day, thank you to the, the neurologist who made the diagnosis and the surgeons that operated on me. I express gratitude for the fact that I have this wonderful family with, you know, 3 really lovely children. Well, they're not children anymore, they're adults. So mindset. Probably the key for me is nutrition, and I really believe that one needs the right building blocks. You know, one of the chapters in my book is "You Are What You Eat," and so nutrition to me is, is quite fundamental. So Avoiding, you know, all the usual things that you hear about, avoiding processed food, understanding that the message that we've been fed for so long about, you know, you have to have low fat, etc., is the wrong message. And what you really need to do is keep your glucose and insulin in control. What else? I think those are probably the key things that I would focus on.

Do you have any thoughts about like hobbies and some passion, some purpose that keeps us juiced up?

Sure. So one of the chapters, one of my 7 pillars, I call it Choose a Challenge. And I think if you stop being curious about the world, if you stop trying to do something new and just sort of say, oh, you know, I'm too old to try anything new, that's sort of like the kiss of death. So, you know, I encourage people to do something that's outside their comfort zone. Maybe it's volunteering, maybe it's just traveling. Maybe for me, I want— I had a bunch of things. One was to learn ballroom dancing. The second one was to learn to speak Spanish fluently. Oh, I'm still struggling with. Then I challenged myself by starting a podcast. Podcast, writing a book. So I think that's absolutely critical. And then I really think that something that has been a problem for us over the last 2 years, it's really important to stay in touch with people and to have a community, you know, whether it's a group, you know, associated with your church or your synagogue or your mosque, or whether it's a group of people who have a book club or something in common so that you're constantly interacting with other people. And that to me is another really critical factor in healthy aging.

Yeah, good. I'm glad you shared that. These are well-established and scientifically-based facts now and lifestyle changes that we need to— and similar, not so different from what the Blue Zones discovered. And the Butners when they went around to these areas where we have the greatest number of centenarians living around the world. So yeah, these are, these are really important factors. And as you say, it's— knowledge is good, the information is good, but how do we take this information and apply it to our lives? Talk about changing behavior and adopting healthy habits and making more informed decisions, right? More conscious, uh, conscious decisions about doing the right things. So tell us about the, the company that you discovered, but where you have this, these offerings of products that help us age better, maybe.

Yeah, that was, that was actually another total change, uh, in my life. So basically what happened, because I had my website where I was writing, you know, about the arts and doing reviews, I was invited to review a trade show which happened to be the Wellness Show, and I was going there with a specific objective of finding things that I could recommend to my readers that would be in some way help them with health or wellness. And I was getting really upset at a lot of the misinformation and things that I knew from sort of my medical background people were saying things that were just wrong. And so I came across this booth where there was a company that was sort of advertising a science-based approach to healthy aging. And I was a little bit critical. I said, well, you know, what is your science-based approach? And it turned out that their science was based on epigenetics. They were developing products that could change at the cellular level, change the way your genes function so that it helped with the health of either your skin or your body systems, both from the inside out through various supplements or from outside in. And what's— what really caught my attention, this was a month before my 70th birthday, and I said to them, you know, if, if you have these products that can make me look younger, what can you do to make me look, you know, 20 at my birthday party that was happening a month from now? And they produced a device which was called— they called it a wrinkle iron. It's a galvanic facial spa. And they said to me, if you use this for 5 minutes twice a week, guarantee people people will ask you, what's happening? What have you done? And so I did that. And after 8 treatments, I had my 70th birthday. My kids were throwing a party for me. And people were sort of saying to me, you know, Jill, what have you done? You look 10 years younger. And, you know, I thought, oh, 10 years? I was supposed to look 20. But, you know, so I said to them, well, I have this wrinkle iron. And that was when a number of people sort of said to me, "Where you get one?" And that was a lightbulb moment where I thought, you know, I have always had a job, you know, both in the university and in the hospital. I was always an employee, never been an entrepreneur. Talking about a challenge, why not challenge myself and start a business? And so that is when I became an affiliate for Nu Skin. Which is the company that I am still passionate about because they have a brand of product which is called, called AgeLOC, which has been developed through this gene expression research. And so one of the ones that I take, it's called Vitality, and I credit it, it changes mitochondrial genes, which is the energy production in your brain, your heart, your skeletal muscle. And I credit that for getting the Energizer Bunny Award on a dance cruise that I went to recently because I could just keep going. So there are a number of, of these sort of products, and I was so impressed by the, the quality underlying it and the, this gene expression research that I thought, okay, and so it's now 6 years Um, since I became an affiliate with the company, and I, I love it. I get up every morning thinking, you know, who can I contact for my Growing Older Living Younger mission, and who can I help either look or feel great or earn some money.

So that's great, that's great. Yeah, 6 years, that's a long time. I did— I didn't know you're connected to them for 6 years. We have a, uh, an acquaintance, a mutual acquaintance, as, as you know, and I've talked with him, Dr. Hans Parge. I'm also looking at bringing in the similar products to my website. I'll have a resources page and people can access the links to go to my webpage there at Nu Skin. I'm impressed. I mean, I haven't bought very many, but I'm impressed so far with what I've— and like you say, the evidence-based product, that it's, it's scientific, and they have the outcome studies to prove the benefits of a lot of these products.

So yeah, I was actually just chatting to Dr. Hans, uh, he's just done a podcast interview for me. So we, we were basically sort of connected around our passion for the biophotonic scanner, which is, you know, helps one understand how well your antioxidant are protecting you. So yeah.

Yeah, have you had the scan done?

Oh, I am a scan operator.

Oh, you're an operator.

Yeah, so here in Vancouver, which is actually, you know, how I connected with Hans, because he had a potential client here in Vancouver that he wanted to get scanned, and so he found me so that I could do this on his behalf.

Sure.

The other thing I like about the company is that it's, you know, many of the affiliates, it's collaborative, you know, so if I have a client in San Diego, I can't physically go and do a scan for them, but I can find somebody else who will do that on my behalf. And yeah, it's a lovely network in that way.

Yeah, well, that's great. So kudos to you for staying with that. I think it's a smart science and a very reputable company. So your book, Growing Older, Living Younger, talked about a little bit in the 7 pillars. So what's the main message for your readers? What do you, what do you hope your readers will get out of the book?

The main message, and it's really, it's, it's really the mission of my whole Growing Older, Living Younger Project is that you have the ability to change many of the aspects of how you age. So none of us want to live to 100 and, you know, be ill. The objective is that you have the capacity to influence a lot of the things so that you can really be healthy when you die. That's basically the message.

Yeah, that's important. We have the ability to change many aspects of how, how well we're aging. Yeah, it's, you know, as I've said many times, living to 100 is not in the cards for everyone, but certainly to have more tools at our disposal certainly helps. And the mindset, of course, as you say, the mindset is so important, pushing forward into making it over those those obstacles and setbacks as you did with your, the events in your life, stresses that you encountered, and you pushed through it and back on the road, right?

You know, just one last point about that. I, after I had sort of, after my back injury was fixed, I went on a couple more dance cruises. And, you know, quite often I would see people, they would come up to me and say, oh, "Hey, I saw you dancing, you know, we love to see it. I wish I could do this." And I would say to them, "Why can't you?" And the comment would be, "Oh, you know, I'm too old." And I thought to myself, that is something that I will never, never allow myself to say.

Yeah, yeah, those are the self-limiting beliefs that we carry around with us. Eventually, we hope we can let go of. Because they are narrowing our perspective on aging. Well, this has been great conversation. It looks like we're out of time for today though, Jill. Before we wrap up, I just want to remind our listeners about a co-sponsor for my program, A Mighty Good Time. Are you looking for ways to engage and stay active? Check out amightygoodtime.com. It's a one-stop shop for events and activities for those 50 and over. It's free to search and it's free to post. Amightygoodtime.com. And be sure to visit the Living to 100 Club website to sign up for weekly podcast announcements and monthly newsletters. And while you're there, be sure to download a free copy of my 9 Tips for Living Longer. Lastly, pick up a copy of my book, Living Longer Is the New Normal. All about maintaining a positive mindset in all we do. It's on Amazon as an ebook or hard copy. We've been talking today with Dr. Jillian Lukic. For those who might want to contact you, Jillian, what's the best way to do that?

Best way is probably through email at askdrjill@gmail.com, and that's Jill with a G-I-L-L. Or else go to my website, which is www.askdrjill.com.

Askdrjill@gmail.com and askdrjill.com is the website. Well, thanks again. I enjoyed this conversation. I'm sure our listeners enjoyed it as well. Thanks again.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to talk to you.

Oh, you're welcome. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.

It's time to rethink, renew, and reimagine retirement. Hey everybody, Jared Sylvester here, host of Retire Repurposed. Now, this podcast is about the non-financial parts of retirement, which many times can be even more challenging than the financial. We believe retirement is not the end, rather the beginning of what could be the most impactful, purposeful, and fulfilling season of a person's life. So don't retire, become repurposed. To listen now, search Retire Repurposed on your favorite podcast platform, Senior Resource, or Life Audio.