subject: Dna and Aging [print this page] Dna and Aging Dna and Aging
The cells ability to function depends on the genetic material, the DNA, in the nucleus of the cell, which codes for all the proteins, hormones, and enzymes that make the cell run. The DNA is like an army under constant attack from oxygen free radicals, ultraviolet light, the heat of the body, and other damaging factors. Although the DNA has the ability to repair itself, it falls down on the job with age, a victim of the same aging process that affects the cell. At the same time, damage is accumulating in the energy center of the cell, the mitochondria, which have its own DNA. Up to now, one of the few ways we could limit the damage to the Dna was to take antioxidant supplements such as vitamin C and E to bolster our own defenses.
But, according to scientists the latest European research shows that growth hormone and IGF1 can go further and do what antioxidants cannot. Growth hormone and IGF1 act like carriers to bring the cell the raw materials needed for renovation and repair. IGF1 launches the delivery of the nucleic acids, DNA and RNA, right into the cell nucleus, where the DNA resides. The nucleic acid is used to repair damage to the DNA and stimulate cell division. Growth hormone initiates the transport of amino acids, the building blocks of protein, and nucleic acids into the cytoplasm of the cell, the area outside the nucucleus.
This includes the cell membranes and intracellular organelles, such as the mitochondria. In this way growth hormone and igf1 don not just minimize the damage to the Dna cellular structures, they help heal the cell and the Dna. These two hormones actually treat the blueprint of aging.
The blueprint of aging is in the Dna under the hood of the telomere, at the end of every chromosome that is shortened with each cell division, sys noted plastic surgeon and antiaging researchers, of the clinical research at the Longevity Institute International in Montclair, New Jersey. To actually reverse aging at the cellular level, we will need a substance that will restore telomere length and like a genie turn old cell into young ones.
That is not yet available, although Ciampapa believes it will be in less than a decade. Until then, growth hormone and its attendant hormone, igf1, can do the next best thing help keep the cell in as healthy a state as possible.
