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• UCLA study identifies mechanism behind mind-body connection

  Explains how chronic emotional stress ages the immune system BACKGROUND: Every cell contains a tiny clock called a telomere, which shortens each time the cell divides. Short telomeres are linked to a range of human diseases, including HIV, osteoporosis, Read More...
  Posted Wednesday, July 16, 2008 5:15 AM by clementlawyer / 0 Comments

  Tags: Telomeres, Immune system, chronic stress

• "Cellular Aging Is a Reversible Process"

  An interesting abstract published earlier this year: "Ageing is often defined in the context of telomerase activity and telomere length regulation. Most somatic cells have limited replication ability and undergo senescence eventually. Stem cells are unique as they possess more abundant telomerase activity and are able to maintain telomere lengths for a longer period. Embryonic stem cells are particularly resistant to ageing and can be propagated indefinitely. Remarkably, adult somatic cells can be reprogrammed to an ESC-like state by various means including cell fusion, exposure to ESC cell-free extracts, enforced expression of specific molecules, and somatic cell nuclear transfer. Thus, the rejuvenation of an 'aged' state can be effected by the activation of specific key molecules in the cell. Here, we argue that cellular ageing is a reversible process, and this is determined by the balance of biological molecules which directly or indirectly control telomere length and telomerase activity, either through altering gene expression and/or modulating the epigenetic state of the chromatin."
  
  View the Article Under Discussion: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mad.2006.11.020
  Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
  Posted Thursday, March 22, 2007 6:45 PM from Longevity Meme News and Commentary / 1 Comments

  Tags: Aging, Telomeres, Telomerase, Cell biology

• More On Telomerase and Body Mass

  Ouroboros follows up on recent work on telomerase levels by size of species: "An outstanding question in the evolution of aging is whether telomerase activity (which preserves the ends of linear chromosomes and lengthens the replicative lifespan of cells) is related to lifespan per se. On on hand, it seems likely that it would be related positively: The longer one lives, the longer one's cells need to continue regenerating. On the other hand, the longer one lives, the more likely one is to accumulate [damaged, cancer-prone cells]. Since telomere maintenance is essential for tumor cell viability, one might not want these damaged cells to have ready access to telomerase expression ... and this logic might lead us to the opposite conclusion. ... Seluanov et al. show that among rodents, telomerase activity has co-evolved with body mass, but not lifespan. Furthermore, the correlation is negative: telomerase activity is more restricted in larger animals, perhaps as a defense against the increased cancer risk that comes from having more cells."
  
  View the Article Under Discussion: http://ouroboros.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/telomerase-negatively-correlates-with-body-mass/
  Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
  Posted Wednesday, March 14, 2007 5:36 PM from Longevity Meme News and Commentary / 0 Comments

  Tags: Longevity, Telomeres, Telomerase

• Shrinking telomeres linked to heart disease

  People who go on to have heart attacks have much shorter telomeres than those who remain healthy, a major new study has shown. Telomeres are strands of DNA that cap chromosomes and wear away with each cell division. Statins' ability to protect... Read more
  Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 7:38 PM from KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News / 0 Comments

  Tags: Telomeres, Heart disease, Heart attack

• Update on Telomere Length and Heart Disease

  Scientists have been looking into telomere length and age-related decline for a number of years now: "The researchers, who measured telomere length in leukocytes, or white blood cells, in 1,500 men aged 45-64 years old, found short telomeres indicate a higher likelihood of developing heart disease. ... Telomeres protect the ends of chromosomes from fraying. They shorten each time a cell divides and the loss is associated with ageing. As telomeres get smaller, the chromosomes can become unstable and at greater risk of mutation. Earlier research had shown that people with heart disease have shorter telomeres but it was not clear until now if telomere length could be a predictive marker for the illness. ... They have shown that it is a predictor. It doesn't say it is functionally linked to heart disease but it is certainly associated with it." The next steps involve a better understanding of how this all fits together - is more pronounced telomere shortening only a symptom of years of stressed and worn biochemistry, or is it sufficiently high in the chain of cause and effect to merit preventative therapies aimed at reducing the progression of age-related decline?
  
  View the Article Under Discussion: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=60902007
  Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
  Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 2:15 PM from Longevity Meme News and Commentary / 0 Comments

  Tags: Telomeres, Heart disease

• And What About the Whales?

  The expression of telomerase, and therefore risk of cancer, has apparently been tailored by evolution to scale by body mass (meaning total number of cells): "Until now, scientists believed that our relatively long lifespans controlled the expression of telomerase - an enzyme that can lengthen the lives of cells, but can also increase the rate of cancer. ... Mice express telomerase in all their cells, which helps them heal dramatically fast ... but the flip side of it is runaway cell reproduction - cancer ... evolution has found that the length of time an organism is alive has little effect on how likely some of its cells might mutate into cancer. Instead, simply having more cells in your body does raise the specter of cancer - and does so enough that the benefits of telomerase expression, such as fast healing, weren't worth the cancer risk. ... What, then, does this mean for animals that are far larger than humans? If a 160-pound human must give up telomerase to thwart cancer, then what does a 250,000-pound whale have to do to keep its risk of cancer at bay? ... It may be that whales have a cancer suppressant that we've never considered."
  
  View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=2698
  Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
  Posted Wednesday, December 06, 2006 5:27 AM from Longevity Meme News and Commentary / 0 Comments

  Tags: Telomeres, Cancer, Telomerase, Whales

• Telomeres and Osteoarthritis

  From ScienceDaily, news of a correlation between osteoarthritis and shortened telomeres: "X-rays of both hands were taken of all participants to check for signs of osteoarthritis and a blood sample was taken to assess 'biological aging' in white cell DNA. ... Unsurprisingly, the findings showed that white cell telomere lengths were associated with chronological age. The older a person was, the shorter they were. But among the 160 people with hand osteoarthritis, the telomere length was significantly shorter than among those without the disease ... the amount of telomere shortening was equivalent to that accrued over 11 years in healthy people ... The more severe the disease, the shorter was the telomere length. ... The authors suggest that both the aging process and osteoarthritis share biological factors in common, including oxidative stress and low level chronic inflammation."
  
  View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061001204429.htm
  Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
  Posted Monday, October 02, 2006 7:19 AM from Longevity Meme News and Commentary / 0 Comments

  Tags: Aging, Telomeres, Osteoarthritis

• Three share Lasker Prize for telomerase research

  The Albert & Mary Lasker Foundation, in New York City, has announced its 2006 medical research awards, which are often harbingers of Nobel Prizes. The Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research goes to professor of biology and physiology Elizabeth Read More...
  Posted Thursday, September 21, 2006 4:11 PM by newsteam / 0 Comments

  Tags: Aging, Telomeres, Telomerase, Prizes

• Telomeres, Stem Cells, Aging

  A paper in Nature touches on a most intriguing area of study: we know that telomeres tend to shorten and stem cells fail to replicate to repair tissue with increasing age, but what is the cart and what is the horse here? Do other modes of age-related cellular damage contribute to or result from these trends - to what degree and how? The science of aging is replete with questions of this ilk, as well as the strong sense that answers will come in the decade ahead. "[In some scenarios], the degree of telomere shortening can be correlated with disease duration, disease stage and severity as well as with response to disease-modifying treatment strategies. Whether increased telomere shortening represents a causal link between [hematopoietic stem cell (HSC)] turnover, replicative senescence and/or the induction of genetic instability in acquired HSC disorders remains to be shown. However, data from congenital disorders [suggest] that disturbed telomere maintenance may play a role for replicative exhaustion of the HSC pool in vivo."
  
  View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.nature.com/leu/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/2404339a.html
  Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
  Posted Friday, August 18, 2006 5:43 PM from Longevity Meme News and Commentary / 0 Comments

  Tags: Aging, Telomeres, Stem cells

• Stress and Telomeres Again

  Scientists have been exploring links between the biochemistry of stress and more rapidly shortened telomeres for a couple of years now. Here's more from Forbes: "We examined healthy women and found that psychological stress was related to [shortened telomeres]. As a result, the immune system of the stressed-out women is apparently aging at a faster rate. The treatments for this problem are what you might expect. 'Everything we already know about fighting off chronic disease, like getting sufficient sleep, staying active throughout life, and having a healthy diet' may stave off premature aging of the immune system." Shortened telomeres are linked to a number of age-related conditions. Stress is clearly a system-altering phenomenon for the human body, so the hypothesis here is plausible - but correlation is not causation. From where I stand, more delving into the mechanisms is needed to demonstrate that the stress response is acting as a significant source of life-shortening cellular damage.
  
  View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2006/08/11/hscout534367.html
  Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
  Posted Saturday, August 12, 2006 8:18 AM from Longevity Meme News and Commentary / 0 Comments

  Tags: Aging, Telomeres, Stress