Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
1–10 of 53 posts
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#2If they find a way to stop aging when I'm already 75, I'm gonna be pissed. (And if they then cure death, I'm gonna be pissed forever.)
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#3This isn't _really_ news. It's been known for a while that cells can be made "immortal" by repairing telomeres [0]. In fact, for stem cells and cancer cells to keep their immortal properties they use various mechanisms to repair telomeres [1]. The major issue is that the more times a cell divides, the greater the likelihood that it will develop cancer. Some theories postulate that the Hayflick division limit on cells is actually a defense against cancer.
The Wikipedia articles on telomeres and telomerase have plenty of further resources[2][3].
[0] http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/chromosomes/telomeres...
[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3370421/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere#Cancer
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase
edit: formatting
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#4This isn't _really_ news. It's been known for a while that cells can be made "immortal" by repairing telomeres [0]. In fact, for stem cells and cancer cells to keep their immortal properties they use various mechanisms to repair telomeres [1]. The major issue is that the more times a cell divides, the greater the likelihood that it will develop cancer. Some theories postulate that the Hayflick division limit on cells…
I think the idea that aging may be an evolved anti-cancer mechanism is interesting. Death of individuals is itself probably a selective advantage for the species. Though I suppose shorter lifespans are also more commonly seen in species that reproduce sexually so that preference for continued biological variance is probably also a factor.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#5If they find a way to stop aging when I'm already 75, I'm gonna be pissed. (And if they then cure death, I'm gonna be pissed forever.)
At least then you have an excuse to not work, being 25 perpetually for most people could simply mean an eternity of work
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#6If they find a way to stop aging when I'm already 75, I'm gonna be pissed. (And if they then cure death, I'm gonna be pissed forever.)
But we are talking about reversal of aging, not pausing.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#7This isn't _really_ news. It's been known for a while that cells can be made "immortal" by repairing telomeres [0]. In fact, for stem cells and cancer cells to keep their immortal properties they use various mechanisms to repair telomeres [1]. The major issue is that the more times a cell divides, the greater the likelihood that it will develop cancer. Some theories postulate that the Hayflick division limit on cells…
I think the idea that aging may be an evolved anti-cancer mechanism is interesting. Death of individuals is itself probably a selective advantage for the species. Though I suppose shorter lifespans are also more commonly seen in species that reproduce sexually so that preference for continued biological variance is probably also a factor.
Well why don't we just stay hyper fertile till we drop dead? That would be very positive evolutionarily! Truth be told evolution is a chaotic imperfect process that does all kinds of glitchy seemingly suboptimal things so aging is not perfect and divine because it's evolution. Sorry Candide, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#8This indeed is news! It's not the idea of telomere extension or telomerase, but a quick hit, temporary way of inducing that extension. Every other time I've seen this discussed, it involved some sort of modified virus or persistent agent.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#9This is of interest because it provides a much better methodology for lengthening telomeres, with more control than genetic engineering, and therefore a faster path to establishing why telomerase therapy extends life in mice.
Average telomere length in tissue is a measure of health in general: since telomere length decreases with each cell division it is a proxy for some combination of cell division rates and rate of influx of fresh new cells with long telomeres provided by the stem cell population maintaining a tissue. Since average telomere length is often measured in white blood cells it goes up and down with health and generally downward with age. Stem cell activity declines with age, so this shouldn't be surprising.
Lengthening telomeres via telomerase may extend life in mice for any number of reasons, some of which actually have nothing to do with telomeres. Telomerase, like all biomolecules, has a lot of roles, not all of which are fully understood. Alternative and more controllable methods of lengthening telomeres should help narrow down what is going on in those studies. Is it greater stem cell activity, something to do with telomerase influencing mitochondrial function, something completely different?
In general if you're thinking of aging as accumulated molecular damage, telomere shortening looks like a consequence not a root cause. It may cause further issues itself, but targeting it is probably not as effective as going for the actual root causes that lead to it. The interesting question is why telomerase therapy does do comparatively well in extending life in mice.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#10If they find a way to stop aging when I'm already 75, I'm gonna be pissed. (And if they then cure death, I'm gonna be pissed forever.)
It is not stopping aging, it is reversing it. You get old because your cells divide just repairing and maintaining the body. Each time one cell divides itself, the copies get a little shorter telomere.
When the telomere is in bad condition, your cells divide slower or even not divide itself.
When this happens your tissues do not repair fast enough, and everything gets a worse condition, your skin, your hair, your brain, your heart.
Restoring telomeres means your cells could start dividing again. At 75 your body will go back to "young adult" 20 years old, without the hair, teeth and whatever you have lost in your life, and the scars, and broken bones soldering, or damaged ligaments that you already have got in your life.
However, lots of animals could grow hair and teeth again so they will probably find a way to make that too.
People will continue dying, but young in their 100s, or in their 20s like today, in things like accidents, wars, terrorist attacks and so on.
People won't die from old age, like most people do today.
Of course this will change the world and will have terrible social consequences.
We will need a better (bigger and cheaper) energy source(fusion) that what we have today to sustain a population that mostly never dies, population and social controls(because old-now young people will have a terrible advantage, experience while being young, and all their accumulated compound wealth) and a way to start exploring other planets and living there.