We are made of about 30 trillion cells, all of which work in harmony to keep us alive by performing the functions that keep us alive second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour… (you get it…)
But sometimes cells go rogue and don’t do what they’re supposed to do, and we end up with cells that start to cause damage.
These cells are called “zombie cells” and they’re not good for our aging process because they release inflammatory chemicals that have been shown to contribute to all the health issues that we associate with normal aging – arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes, dementia, just to name a few.
Zombie cells are old or damaged cells that have stopped dividing and replicating.
When this happens, they need to be “cleaned out” of the body, this is done by a process called autophagy – it removes debris and repairs damaged cells.
When the damage of the cell is beyond repair, a process called apoptosis – cell death – is activated. This prevents the damaged cells from replicating themselves and forming tumors.
To simplify – autophagy saves damaged cells that can be repaired, and apoptosis destroys cells that are too damaged to be fixed.
In order for these processes to function properly, your immune systems need to be in good shape.
Unfortunately, too many people have overstressed and damaged immune systems from too much processed foods, sugar, nutrient deficiencies, a sedentary lifestyle, stress and toxins.
None of these things help support your immune system, and when your immune system isn’t functioning optimally your cells can’t be fixed or removed properly. They remain in a state of the undead – they are literally “zombies”.
Zombie cells want to be found and either fixed or removed so they excrete inflammation to get the attention of the immune system.
In a healthy immune system, the body reacts by sending cells to clear them out, but in an unhealthy immune system, the zombie cell isn’t found or cleared out, so they keep excreting inflammation, and this causes damage to nearby cells, turning them into zombies as well.
Over time zombie cells collect in places like your joints, eyes, liver and brain and can cause the illnesses of aging.
Even if you don’t get any of these serious illnesses, zombie cells still have an impact on how fast we age and how good we feel. So, it’s important to eliminate them to improve your overall health as you age.
We can do this in a few ways:
Antioxidants help lower inflammation – Eat the Rainbow – vegetables come in all different colors of the rainbow, this gives you the antioxidants, vitamins and minerals to keep you healthy and destroy zombie cells.
Intermittent fasting is a way to turn on autophagy – start by finishing dinner by 7pm and don’t eat breakfast until 7am. As this gets easier, push breakfast back by 30 minutes and as this gets easier, push it back another 30 minutes until you’re at a 16/8 fast – 16 hours of fasting and eating within an 8-hour window.
Regular movement also turns on autophagy. Lifting weights causes slight tears in muscle tissue causing an acute inflammatory response that wipes away zombie cells while fixing the muscle (this is good inflammation).
Aerobic excise increases your heart rate helps reduce the amount of zombie cells as well.
20 minutes in a sauna activates genes that kill zombie cells.
If you’d like help with becoming a zombie killer, schedule a free consultation to see how we can work together to do that: https://calendly.com/donnajskincare/let-s-connect
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