Quotes About Telomeres

We believe that such a significant increase in longevity is due to the protective effect against cancer produced by caloric restriction - incidences fall by 40 percent if we compare them with the mice that produce more telomerase and have a normal diet - and, added to the presence of longer telomeres, this makes the mice live longer and better.

People who exercise more and sleep better have longer telomeres.

In 1978, Elizabeth Blackburn, working with Joe Gall, identified the DNA sequence of telomeres. Every time a cell divides, it gets shorter. But telomeres usually don't. So there must be something happening to the telomeres to keep their length in equilibrium.

In humans, the thing is that as we mature, our telomeres slowly wear down. So the question has always been: 'Did that matter?' Well, more and more, it seems like it matters.

Basically, when you look at different types of cells, such as fibroblasts, which form connective tissue, or epithelial cells, from saliva, you see general correlations within a person. If telomeres are up for one cell type, they're up for others overall.

We see that mice that undergo caloric restriction show a lower telomere shortening rate than those fed with a normal diet. These mice therefore have longer telomeres as adults, as well as lower rates of chromosome anomalies.

Its focus is on treatments that can lengthen telomeres—the "caps" at the end of each strand of DNA. Telomeres get shorter each time a cell copies itself. As cells copy themselves throughout our lives, the telomeres eventually

In 2004, results from a study that I worked on with colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, linked chronic stress to shortening of telomeres.

Cancer cells have had so many other things go wrong with them, genetic, non-genetic changes, that those cells, one of the things they then get selected for is that they have lots of telomerase because now the telomeres in those cells get maintained.

It will be useful for you to know your biological age and maybe to change your lifestyle habits if you find you have short telomeres.

Chronic emotional stress shortens your telomeres.

We're collecting about 100,000 telomere lengths in saliva samples and then looking at how those relate to both the extensive longitudinal clinical records that Kaiser is collecting and the genome sequence variations.

We and other groups are seeing clear statistical links between telomere shortness and risk for a variety of diseases that are becoming very common, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers.

Weight loss through calorie restriction and an even more vigorous exercise program failed to improve telomere length, so it appears that the active ingredient is the quality, not quantity, of the food eaten.

In the control group (the group of participants who did not change their lifestyles), their telomeres predictably shrank with age. But for the healthy-living group, not only did their telomeres shrink less, they grew. Five years later, their telomeres were even longer on average than when they started, suggesting a healthy lifestyle can boost telomerase enzyme activity and reverse cellular aging.71