Longer Telomeres Mean Longer Life

Fight Aging!

Do you want to live a longer life in good health? Simple practices can make some difference, such as exercise or calorie restriction. But over the long haul all that really matters is progress in medicine: building new classes of therapy to repair and reverse the known root causes of aging. The sooner these treatments arrive, the more lives will be saved. Find out how to help »

I don't normally post abstracts from scientific publications, but this one from Nature is interesting in light of recent news about telomeres, the protective caps for our DNA. Scientists knew that cellular life span increases with telomere length, but now Korean researchers have determined that the overall life span of the nematode worm is also increased when telomeres are lengthened. This opens some interesting new lines of inquiry into the mechanisms of aging and cancer: we should expect to see the results of telomere extension experiments in mice in three to four years. To learn more about telomeres and their role in aging, you should visit the telomere home page at InfoAging.

Link: http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/Dynapage.taf?file=/ng/journal/v36/n6/abs/ng1356.html