Monday, November 26, 2012

How Long Will I Live?


  There are several ways to know about how long we will live.  First, if you drink and smoke a lot it won’t be very long.  If you do a genetic test you will get an idea, but also a very good way is to measure your telomeres.  These are the ends of the chromosomes which, if you expect to  lead a long life the telomeres need to be long.  The shorter they are the shorter the life, in general.  And the real question is what is their function and why do they get shorter and therefore shorten our lives.

  Lifelong stress will shorten your telomeres, which shorten under stress or adversity.  Telomeres  form the ends of the chromosome that shorten under chronic financial problems, long-term care of  a loved one, emotional neglect and being unloved,  including getting divorced, or suffering chronic anxiety.  It is one way that anxiety kills.  It is that chronic stress indicates a system-wide problem that is expressed in telomere length.  The key ingredient for this is long-term stress resulting from more rapid DNA replication.  And the key ingredient, then, is imprinted stress that causes rapid DNA turnover; generally the earlier it begins the more deleterious it is because unavoidable stress is deadly.  Living in the womb is about as helpless as we get.

  Of course what stress does is ramp up levels of cortisol, the stress hormone that work in see-saw fashion with telomere length.  The higher the cortisol the shorter telomeres will be, in the long run.  When we couple higher cortisol, shorter telomeres together  with higher body temperature  and elevated blood pressure we have an index of a shorter life.  Fortunately, there is something we can do about it since we do lower vitals after one year of our therapy; body temp is on average one degree less and blood pressure in hypertensives are 24 points lower.  We have not as yet done telomere studies.

  There have been studies on healthy adults who started in life in an institution; they had radically lower telomere  lengths. (see Nature.  Vol 490.  Oct 11, 2012).  More important, mothers who underwent severe stress while they were carrying (death of loved one) had offspring with lower than average telomeres.  I have not seen studies on telomere length in those with adverse gestational lives but we plan to do it.  Particularly, we want to study imprinted stress that continues in our system long after the very early trauma.    We must never neglect the imprint; it is the way we  engrave experience in the total system.  A person can claim that he had a wonderful childhood but if his telomere length is shorter than average we need to examine him more carefully.    When we have shorter telomeres we can expect that the person will be more vulnerable to such diseases as diabetes  and heart problems.  The shorter length individuals are much more likely to develop cancer, by the way.  And dementia is another great likelihood.  Can you die from neurosis?  (chronic imprinted stress). Absolutely.  Can you suffer from premature serious illness?  Yes, Yes.  Can we avoid it? Yes, yes.  Take out the pain.  It’s the pain, my friends.  Take it out and there will be far less smoking, drinking  and drug taking, and therefore, longer telomeres.  It is the telomere that are shouting out the pain in their own way,    We need to listen.  And we need to talk back to them in their own language—physiology.  And we need to say, hang on, friend, we will take your pain away, even if you do not know it is there.
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9 comments:

  1. Richard AtkinNovember 26, 2012 at 5:20 PM

    Increasing and activating the telomerase in my mortal somatic cells will not compensate for the effects of entropy. Regardless of chromosomal lifespan, my body's system will continue to head towards chaos. Death will be inevitable. Primal Therapy will increase my lifespan, but it will not make me immortal.

    I need to understand how the axolotl manages to grow entirely new, mechanically and electrochemically functional body parts after they have been removed. I need to apply this technology to my brain. I need to remove my brain and grow a new one while machines keep my body alive. Over time, all of my body parts must be removed and regenerated from the fetal stage.

    I must become a baby again. And then I must be held in the arms of a loving mother. It is the only way.

    Art, I am just kidding, but I will be interested in your research on telomeres.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jan Åke JohnssonNovember 26, 2012 at 5:45 PM

    How well can I live?

    It was necessary to understand my terror / epilepsy. To relive and to feel the wordless trauma of not being able getting out and having been cheated to struggle during two days in the wrong direction only to be turned around and eventually be sucked out as a strangled breech has been a physical, mental and neurological privilege. However, the documented demystification took years to relive, step by step, because of the tremendous magnitude of imprinted horror and pain that the fight, for life and death (equal to my subsequent epilepsy), had established.

    How could I choose to live through all that pain? The reason can be summarized in the deep satisfaction it meant to finally understand knowing the importance of my real needs and to get rid of / dissolve a degrading neurotic behavior. Through continuous added small positive improvements, I could also brake the trend of over taxation of my organs.

    Your question “How long will I live” has to a limited degree occupied me. My dominating returning issue has been “How well can I live?”. My priority of quality of life is the finest and most significant consequence that the Primal Therapy has had on my attitude to life. Primal Therapy, as my Operating System, has founded a literal feeling of growing younger and to resetting my biologic clock with the help of my different physical and diet applications.(What matters is to focus.)

    Having experienced Art Janov’s “Evolution in Reverse”, during 40 years, has, step by step, given me an opportunity to relive life distorting pain. Imprinted, repressed pain creates depression, anxiety, neuroses, which includes shortened telomeres and is an vital piece in the puzzle of human aging, cancer and stem cells. The Primal Principle leaves a decisive answer / Frame of Reference to the question WHY certain telomeres shorten. The Nobel Laureates show without corresponding reference that these telomeres shorten.

    Focusing on telomeres Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The “Nobel Prize.org” issued a press release with the following final conclusion: “The award of the Nobel Prize recognizes the discovery of a fundamental mechanism in the cell, a discovery that has stimulated the development of new therapeutic strategies”.

    I hope my discontent that the innovator of the Primal Principal has not been able to produce convincing research data to be remembered by the Nobel Committee, should not lead to shortened telomeres.

    Jan Johnsson

    ReplyDelete
  3. FrankNovember 27, 2012 at 2:08 AM

    Primal Therapy "God-given" effect!

    Being aware of our emotions require more than a man who interprets what consciousness contains... it requires a limbic system in balance with neo cortex.

    How do we begin at the right end when the end we got is the wrong end? What I'm trying to say is… the wrong end... neo cortex must first "understand" that we are at the wrong end before the wrong may be right and that requires a neo cortex off balance in timing with what the limbic system at time contains to be right in its misery... and to “prove” that we need a legal trial.

    I know that's what you're trying to say for decades now but failed... failed a word that sounds wrong to me... but how do we prove this phenomenon when the evidence of the limbic system is experienced as life-threatening… more than standing for what it contains…its science.

    A neo cortex in dreams of tomorrow will not accept this phenomenon… if not proven in a lawsuit. In this case... to wait for a misery to be right is lost time as the whole world looking for a mom who will never be there.

    Frank

    ReplyDelete
  4. PaulNovember 27, 2012 at 1:14 PM

    Hi Frank,

    I feel it's good to 'assemble and present a case'. You might even get me to help but it's not good to take it to a legal trial. The problem is in the adversity built into the system. There is generally required a plaintiff and offender; a 'victim' and a 'perpetrator'.

    Part of the defensive process of the neo-cortex is aggressive; in the sense that the best form of defence is aggression, so, the whole framework of the law tends toward 'pitting' each of us against each other as adversities. Thus we are "acting out in court" by our mere presence, in court. There is no choice in adversity and once one steps into 'court' one has actually entered the prison porch.

    Court is a place of the act out. . . High Court: a right old ding dong. . .

    What you can do I feel is to make your own written testimonies from your own heartfelt experiences using and refining your fine style of words to do that. Let Primal feelings enter the hall of literature again, they have before under a different pseudonym, This time round, with science attached there is a spring welling up from which we could all draw common water to make ink. Let's write it all down, send some of it, try to publish more and read it all later to see how we feel now about how we felt before we wrote down history.

    Our Personal History is what's important today; in court all you get is histrionics and most of it, once it has spilled out cannot for legal reasons ever be published either. . . that's my experience anyway.

    Paul G.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arthur JanovNovember 27, 2012 at 3:00 PM

      Paul: You are no doubt right. In court all you get is law, rarely justice. art

      Delete
  5. Richard AtkinNovember 27, 2012 at 3:41 PM

    paul, if we are to write, i think we should try to write to as many people as possible as only a tiny percentage will listen. and the message should be delivered in a style that does not cause confusion. we don't need more mock therapy. what is the best way to get the attention of millions of people without damaging the primal center's reputation? i had some ideas but they were unpopular.

    ReplyDelete
  6. FrankDecember 1, 2012 at 1:35 AM

    Thank you Paul for supporting my idea that more must be done!

    “Lifelong stress will shorten your telomeres, which shorten under stress or adversity. Telomeres form the ends of the chromosome that shorten under chronic financial problems, long-term care of a loved one, emotional neglect and being unloved, including getting divorced, or suffering chronic anxiety. It is one way that anxiety kills. It is that chronic stress indicates a system-wide problem that is expressed in telomere length. The key ingredient for this is long-term stress resulting from more rapid DNA replication. And the key ingredient, then, is imprinted stress that causes rapid DNA turnover; generally the earlier it begins the more deleterious it is because unavoidable stress is deadly. Living in the womb is about as helpless as we get”.

    Art we don’t need justice... what we need is the physiological law!

    How shall we account for what you above are explaining… about what science contains concerning the primal therapeutic process... when what you report is for a completely different terminology when only neo cortex interpret the content?
    With the limbic system involved it would not be possible to misinterpret the question… and how do we explain this phenomenon… if not in a legal process enabling for science... science as speaking the language the limbic system scientific reports?

    What the result will become without this legal process? It will never be the big spread of primal therapy as necessary for a revolutionary process when we only let the neo cortex be involved

    A lawsuit as forcing a language other than what neo cortex are knowledgeable for... knowledgeable about its "science" must be on the table… then cannot individuals within psychiatric and psychological area ignore what they have to live up as a legal process supposes to be of law and order.

    Without a legal process we will relegate the primal therapy to the happy hunting grounds where the neo cortex is entitled to quiet suffering.

    Frank,

    ReplyDelete
  7. raindogDecember 1, 2012 at 11:05 PM

    Art: Exactly how do you measure Telomeres? Can you do it at the center?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arthur JanovDecember 2, 2012 at 9:23 AM

      Raindog: Telomeres can be measured and if we ever get any money it is exactly what we will do, along with cortisol and other biochemicals. art

      Delete

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Review of "Beyond Belief"

This thought-provoking and important book shows how people are drawn toward dangerous beliefs.
“Belief can manifest itself in world-changing ways—and did, in some of history’s ugliest moments, from the rise of Adolf Hitler to the Jonestown mass suicide in 1979. Arthur Janov, a renowned psychologist who penned The Primal Scream, fearlessly tackles the subject of why and how strong believers willingly embrace even the most deranged leaders.
Beyond Belief begins with a lucid explanation of belief systems that, writes Janov, “are maps, something to help us navigate through life more effectively.” While belief systems are not presented as inherently bad, the author concentrates not just on why people adopt belief systems, but why “alienated individuals” in particular seek out “belief systems on the fringes.” The result is a book that is both illuminating and sobering. It explores, for example, how a strongly-held belief can lead radical Islamist jihadists to murder others in suicide acts. Janov writes, “I believe if people had more love in this life, they would not be so anxious to end it in favor of some imaginary existence.”
One of the most compelling aspects of Beyond Belief is the author’s liberal use of case studies, most of which are related in the first person by individuals whose lives were dramatically affected by their involvement in cults. These stories offer an exceptional perspective on the manner in which belief systems can take hold and shape one’s experiences. Joan’s tale, for instance, both engaging and disturbing, describes what it was like to join the Hare Krishnas. Even though she left the sect, observing that participants “are stunted in spiritual awareness,” Joan considers returning someday because “there’s a certain protection there.”
Janov’s great insight into cultish leaders is particularly interesting; he believes such people have had childhoods in which they were “rejected and unloved,” because “only unloved people want to become the wise man or woman (although it is usually male) imparting words of wisdom to others.” This is just one reason why Beyond Belief is such a thought-provoking, important book.”
Barry Silverstein, Freelance Writer

Quotes for "Life Before Birth"

“Life Before Birth is a thrilling journey of discovery, a real joy to read. Janov writes like no one else on the human mind—engaging, brilliant, passionate, and honest.
He is the best writer today on what makes us human—he shows us how the mind works, how it goes wrong, and how to put it right . . . He presents a brand-new approach to dealing with depression, emotional pain, anxiety, and addiction.”
Paul Thompson, PhD, Professor of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine

Art Janov, one of the pioneers of fetal and early infant experiences and future mental health issues, offers a robust vision of how the earliest traumas of life can percolate through the brains, minds and lives of individuals. He focuses on both the shifting tides of brain emotional systems and the life-long consequences that can result, as well as the novel interventions, and clinical understanding, that need to be implemented in order to bring about the brain-mind changes that can restore affective equanimity. The transitions from feelings of persistent affective turmoil to psychological wholeness, requires both an understanding of the brain changes and a therapist that can work with the affective mind at primary-process levels. Life Before Birth, is a manifesto that provides a robust argument for increasing attention to the neuro-mental lives of fetuses and infants, and the widespread ramifications on mental health if we do not. Without an accurate developmental history of troubled minds, coordinated with a recognition of the primal emotional powers of the lowest ancestral regions of the human brain, therapists will be lost in their attempt to restore psychological balance.
Jaak Panksepp, Ph.D.
Bailey Endowed Chair of Animal Well Being Science
Washington State University

Dr. Janov’s essential insight—that our earliest experiences strongly influence later well being—is no longer in doubt. Thanks to advances in neuroscience, immunology, and epigenetics, we can now see some of the mechanisms of action at the heart of these developmental processes. His long-held belief that the brain, human development, and psychological well being need to studied in the context of evolution—from the brainstem up—now lies at the heart of the integration of neuroscience and psychotherapy.
Grounded in these two principles, Dr. Janov continues to explore the lifelong impact of prenatal, birth, and early experiences on our brains and minds. Simultaneously “old school” and revolutionary, he synthesizes traditional psychodynamic theories with cutting-edge science while consistently highlighting the limitations of a strict, “top-down” talking cure. Whether or not you agree with his philosophical assumptions, therapeutic practices, or theoretical conclusions, I promise you an interesting and thought-provoking journey.
Lou Cozolino, PsyD, Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University


In Life Before Birth Dr. Arthur Janov illuminates the sources of much that happens during life after birth. Lucidly, the pioneer of primal therapy provides the scientific rationale for treatments that take us through our original, non-verbal memories—to essential depths of experience that the superficial cognitive-behavioral modalities currently in fashion cannot possibly touch, let alone transform.
Gabor Maté MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction

An expansive analysis! This book attempts to explain the impact of critical developmental windows in the past, implores us to improve the lives of pregnant women in the present, and has implications for understanding our children, ourselves, and our collective future. I’m not sure whether primal therapy works or not, but it certainly deserves systematic testing in well-designed, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled clinical trials.
K.J.S. Anand, MBBS, D. Phil, FAACP, FCCM, FRCPCH, Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Anatomy & Neurobiology, Senior Scholar, Center for Excellence in Faith and Health, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare System


A baby's brain grows more while in the womb than at any time in a child's life. Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script That Rules Our Lives is a valuable guide to creating healthier babies and offers insight into healing our early primal wounds. Dr. Janov integrates the most recent scientific research about prenatal development with the psychobiological reality that these early experiences do cast a long shadow over our entire lifespan. With a wealth of experience and a history of successful psychotherapeutic treatment, Dr. Janov is well positioned to speak with clarity and precision on a topic that remains critically important.
Paula Thomson, PsyD, Associate Professor, California State University, Northridge & Professor Emeritus, York University

"I am enthralled.
Dr. Janov has crafted a compelling and prophetic opus that could rightly dictate
PhD thesis topics for decades to come. Devoid of any "New Age" pseudoscience,
this work never strays from scientific orthodoxy and yet is perfectly accessible and
downright fascinating to any lay person interested in the mysteries of the human psyche."
Dr. Bernard Park, MD, MPH

His new book “Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” shows that primal therapy, the lower-brain therapeutic method popularized in the 1970’s international bestseller “Primal Scream” and his early work with John Lennon, may help alleviate depression and anxiety disorders, normalize blood pressure and serotonin levels, and improve the functioning of the immune system.
One of the book’s most intriguing theories is that fetal imprinting, an evolutionary strategy to prepare children to cope with life, establishes a permanent set-point in a child's physiology. Baby's born to mothers highly anxious during pregnancy, whether from war, natural disasters, failed marriages, or other stressful life conditions, may thus be prone to mental illness and brain dysfunction later in life. Early traumatic events such as low oxygen at birth, painkillers and antidepressants administered to the mother during pregnancy, poor maternal nutrition, and a lack of parental affection in the first years of life may compound the effect.
In making the case for a brand-new, unified field theory of psychotherapy, Dr. Janov weaves together the evolutionary theories of Jean Baptiste Larmarck, the fetal development studies of Vivette Glover and K.J.S. Anand, and fascinating new research by the psychiatrist Elissa Epel suggesting that telomeres—a region of repetitive DNA critical in predicting life expectancy—may be significantly altered during pregnancy.
After explaining how hormonal and neurologic processes in the womb provide a blueprint for later mental illness and disease, Dr. Janov charts a revolutionary new course for psychotherapy. He provides a sharp critique of cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, and other popular “talk therapy” models for treating addiction and mental illness, which he argues do not reach the limbic system and brainstem, where the effects of early trauma are registered in the nervous system.
“Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” is scheduled to be published by NTI Upstream in October 2011, and has tremendous implications for the future of modern psychology, pediatrics, pregnancy, and women’s health.
Editor