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It has been known, albeit somewhat anecdotally, that the declining length of an individual's telomeres is positively correlated with many of the signs, symptoms and
maladies of senescence and the
aging process. It has been hypothesized that if one were able to extend the length (or maintain the length) of one's telomeres, there would be a powerful resultant
anti-aging effect. The trick would be to keep the length of telomeres from declining -- "long is strong" in a manner of speaking.
Let's step back for just a moment, and and review the nature of telomeres courtesy of NewsMedical.Net:
A telomere is a region of repetitive
DNA at the end of a
chromosome, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration.
Russian theorist
Alexei Olovnikov was the first to recognize (1971) the problem of how
chromosomes
could replicate right to the tip, as such was impossible with
replication in a 5' to 3' direction. To solve this and to accommodate
Leonard Hayflick's idea of limited somatic cell division, Olovnikov
suggested that DNA sequences would be lost in every replicative phase
until they reached a critical level, at which point cell division would
stop.
During cell division, enzymes that duplicate the chromosome and its
DNA cannot continue their duplication all the way to the end of the
chromosome.
If cells divided without telomeres, they would lose
the ends of their chromosomes, and the necessary information they
contain. (In 1972, James Watson named this phenomenon the "end
replication problem".)
The telomeres are disposable buffers
blocking the ends of the chromosomes and are consumed during cell
division and replenished by an enzyme, the telomerase known as reverse
transcriptase.
They (telomeres) have been likened to the aglets (tips) on the ends of shoelaces that keep them from fraying.
In 1975–1977, Blackburn, working as a postdoctoral fellow at
Yale
University with
Joseph Gall, discovered the unusual nature of telomeres,
with their simple repeated DNA sequences composing chromosome ends.
Their work was published in 1978.
The telomere shortening mechanism normally limits cells to a fixed
number of divisions, and animal studies suggest that this is responsible
for aging on the cellular level and sets a limit on lifespans.
Telomeres protect a cell's chromosomes from fusing with each other or rearranging—abnormalities which can lead to
cancer—and
so cells are normally destroyed when their telomeres are consumed.
Most
cancers are the result of "immortal" cells which have ways of evading
this programmed destruction.
Elizabeth Blackburn,
Carol Greider, and
Jack Szostak were awarded the
2009
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of how
chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme
telomerase.
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Now that you've gotten that bit of a refresher, following is an excerpt from an article which appears courtesy of IAS' most recent Newsletter:
New Study Proves Telomere Length Predicts Life Expectancy
So
moving on, this week news of yet another study confirming that the
length of the telomere is directly related to the length of a person’s
life. As regular readers of this newsletter or the
Aging Matters Magazine
will know, telomeres are the end caps of chromosomes,
like the aglets on shoe laces that
protects the
DNA from deterioration during
cell division.
Shortened
telomeres have been linked to increased risk of cancers,
heart disease,
dementia and death.
Researchers at
the
University of Utah tested over 3,500 DNA samples from heart attack
and stroke
patients, then correlated it with an archive of nearly 30,000
blood DNA samples from heart patients who had as much as 20 years
follow-up clinical and survival data. From this the team were able to
predict survival rates among patients with heart disease based on the
length of their telomeres — the longer the patient's telomeres, the
greater the chance of living a longer life.
---------------
With all of this information pointing at telomere shrinkage as a possible result or (or cause of) aging and implicated in the increased occurrence of cancer as well, what is available to us to either keep our telomeres robustly long (for a longer time, thus lengthening our expected lifespan), or decrease the rate at which they shrink?
Here are a few interesting links for you to look at:
NATURAL TELOMERE PRESERVATION
ENCOURAGING NATURAL TELOMERASE PRODUCTION
TROCOTRIENOLS AND TELOMERE LENGTH
CARNOSINE, LIFESTYLE AND TELOMERE LENGTH
VITAMIN B, FOLATES AND TELOMERE LENGTH
To date, the results of all of the above protocols are still largely conjecture, and not adequately tested using the best practices of The Scientific Method. I don't offer health or medical advice -- you can get that only from your primary healthcare provider or specialist -- but I have erred on the side of caution by supplementing with large doses of B12, Folic Acid, Vitamin D (these three,
coincidentally are part of a homocysteine-reducing and anti-depression protocol) and a multi vitamin -multi mineral supplement.
I'll keep you informed as and if I find some news regarding this topic from a reliable source.
In the meantime, thank you for reading me, and for passing my articles along to your colleagues and contacts via social media.
Douglas E. Castle for The
Life Extension And Enhancement Blog.
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