Know About The Facts And Secrets Of Aging

day of birth to death, rather like a cellular sand clock

. These biological timers are telomeresrepeat sequences of DNA that, together with associated proteins, cap the ends of chromosomes and protect them Evidence is growing that every chromosome in the body carries a marker that counts down from the from degradation, just as the plastic coating on the ends of shoelaces stops them from fraying.

Research has shown that telomeres shorten with each cell division, gradually marking off the time to cell death.1 This shortening is accelerated in diseases associated with ageingparticularly cardiovascular disease and cancersand in the presence of risk factors for these diseases such as obesity and high blood pressure. The hope for the future is that measurements of telomere length could be used to detect early disease, allowing preventive measures to be put in place, and eventually that methods will be found to slow or even reverse the shortening.

Telomeres are made up of a large number of tandem repeats of the sequence TTAGGG. The enzyme DNA polymerase cannot fully replicate the 3' end of linear DNA, so telomeres shorten progressively with each repeated cell division. Laboratory studies have shown that the telomere length of replicating cells is inversely correlated with age.

More than 30 years ago, Olovnikov proposed that this shortening could provide a mechanism for a biological clock that determines cell behaviour.2 This theorysometimes referred to as Olovnikovs clockhas subsequently been supported by in vitro and clinical research. "It sounds like science fiction, but more and more studies are showing that telomeres signal cellular ageing," explains Annette Fitzpatrick, research associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.

"The full extent of telomere function is not fully understood, but they are involved in some way in the maintenance of cellular stability," says Nilesh Samani, British Heart Foundation professor of cardiology at the University of Leicester and a leading researcher in the field.

Telomere length is essentially a measure of biological age, which may be more useful for understanding variations in the age of onset of disease than chronological age, he argues. This may partly explain why women live longer than men in most societies, as they generally have longer telomeres.

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by: Anjuri

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