Could your aging skin, lack of vitality, and unwanted health complaints be due to pesticides accumulating in your body?
Pesticides are everywhere, and in addition to their general toxic effects, research shows they may actually be stealing your youth.
In this article, we’ll discuss:
- How pesticides accelerate cellular aging
- The damaging impact of pesticides on your mitochondria and telomeres
- The snowball effect of pesticides in older populations
- The most effective ways to reduce exposure and enhance your protection against pesticides
Pesticides and Aging: What The Research Says
The research is crystal clear: pesticide exposure can accelerate cellular, tissue, and organ aging. But how do pesticides impact our biology so profoundly? Let’s explore the research.
In cell cultures, the addition of low-dose pesticides actively accelerates signs of cellular aging, specifically instigating cell senescence. Senescence is a term that describes the loss of a cell’s ability to grow and replicate. When a cell becomes senescent, it begins to deteriorate and die[1].
In one study, mesenchymal stem cells, critical cells involved in the production of skeletal muscle, bone, and cartilage, were significantly altered due to pesticides. The authors reported that the impact of pesticides resulted in increased inflammation and oxidative stress, which led to accelerated cellular aging[2].
While many detrimental biological pathways are activated in the presence of pesticides, studies tend to point to one glaring red flag: oxidation. Oxidative stress is a common side effect of pesticide exposure, and its downstream effects include inflammation, neurological damage, and mitochondrial damage – to name a few[3].
But we would be remiss not to discuss pesticides’ role in another crucial component of cellular aging: telomeres. Telomeres sit at the end of your chromosomes, protecting them from degradation. What does this have to do with aging? These telomeres (which are made of proteins) preserve the information in your genome. As they shorten, they lose their ability to protect the chromosome, and eventually, cell death occurs. In other words, the faster your telomeres shorten, the faster your cells die[4][5].
While telomeres naturally tend to wear away slowly as we age, shorter telomeres are associated with increased incidence of disease and poor survival. The good news is that lifestyle factors can impact telomere length, which means that when we know what to do (and what not to do), we can directly impact our body’s aging process[6].
But what do we know about pesticide exposure apart from the direct cellular impact?
One of the systems in your body most vulnerable to pesticide toxicity is your nervous system. In fact, research shows that older people with higher levels of pesticides in their bodies show greater cognitive decline than their lower pesticide counterparts[7][8].
That said, pesticides can accelerate aging in any tissue and organ in your body due to their impact on cellular aging.
Age-Related Pesticide Risk: A Double Whammy
Unfortunately, studies show that pesticides not only make us age faster, but the older we get, the more vulnerable we are to pesticide toxicity. It’s like an age-acceleration snowball effect.
Why exactly does aging impact our pesticide vulnerability?
In the natural aging process, our organs and tissues slowly lose their optimal function due to years of use and stressors. This is why older people often experience a reduced capacity to remove toxins – including pesticides. So, although you may consume the same amount of pesticides when you’re 50 as you did when you were 20, you’ll find that you have a reduced ability to remove them. Therefore, you’ll experience an increased vulnerability to their toxic effects[9].
Lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, and stress reduction can slow the aging process by taking stress (emotional and oxidative) off of our bodies. But if we are constantly bombarding our bodies with toxic insults like pesticides, we’re swimming against the current[10][11][12].
How To Protect Yourself Against Pesticide Toxicity
While you may not be able to avoid pesticides in your food and water completely, you can take some powerful steps to reduce your exposure and support your body’s detoxification processes.
Reduce Your Exposure
The first thing to consider, particularly when it comes to reducing exposure, is food quality. Conventionally grown produce is much more likely to have pesticides than organically grown produce. In fact, one of the primary tenets of organic farming is avoiding the use of toxic chemicals like artificial pesticides and instead leaning on more natural ways to reduce pests and bacteria.
Non-GMO foods will also have a lower risk of pesticide exposure, particularly exposure to glyphosate, which is widely used on GMO crops like wheat, soy, and corn.
While you may not be able to buy 100% organic produce, any step you can take in that direction will benefit you. It’s also helpful to note that some smaller local farms may use organic practices but may not have a USDA organic certification due to the high cost of achieving this stamp of approval. If you have a farmers market near you, ask your local producers if they use pesticides on their crops; you might be surprised to find that many do not.
Enhance Your Detox Pathways
While reducing your exposure to pesticides is critical, the fact of the matter is – they’re everywhere. Even if you buy 100% organic produce and animal products, the restaurants you frequent may not. Not to mention the toxins that can sneak their way into our water systems[13].
And, of course, if you ever have dinner at a friend’s house, go to a cocktail party, or need to grab a snack on the go, there is no way to control unwanted pesticide exposure.
But here’s the good news: you can arm your body with the nutrients it needs to combat pesticide exposure by supporting your detox organs. Your liver and kidneys are made for this job – all they want to do is help you detox. We run into problems, however, when these two get overloaded with toxins from environmental exposure.
The best way to help them do their job?
Give them daily support with nutrients that target detox pathways and assist these vital organs in doing what they do best. Foods like broccoli sprouts, alfalfa, chlorella, parsley, dandelion, milk thistle, burdock, and kelp can all assist your body in removing unwanted chemicals. And the best part is that these very same superfoods are also anti-aging – that’s a two-for-one we could all use.
In addition to detox and anti-aging foods, fiber can help you pull toxins out of your digestive tract. Foods like flax seeds and inulin are excellent options for boosting your daily fiber intake.
When I created my Daily Detox blend, I had all of these superfoods in mind. I wanted to find a way to boost my own daily detoxification processes and also make it easy for my clients to do the same. Oftentimes, the idea of adding detox and anti-aging foods to our diets is much easier in theory than it is in practice. With Daily Detox, you get to cover your basis and supplement additional nutrients as you feel called.
Daily Detox contains a blend of all of the superfoods, along with many more.
Takeaway
Pesticides are everywhere in our environment, and their impact on cellular health is staggering. While we’re all on our own aging journeys, there’s no reason to allow toxins like pesticides to accelerate your aging process.
These sneaky chemicals hit us right where it hurts – they attack our mitochondria, shorten our telomeres, incite inflammation, and drive oxidative stress.
In addition to choosing high-quality produce that avoids pesticides, enhancing your body’s natural anti-aging and detoxification defenses will help reduce their detrimental impact.
If you’re looking for a natural and easy way to support your body against pesticides, check out Daily Detox. And to further enhance your anti-aging regimen, give Ageless AF a try. This formulation is tailor-made to slow the aging process and help you look and feel younger than ever.
