Samantha Torrence - In our never ending quest for health and longevity humans have found many different vitamins, minerals, and enzymes that are beneficial to humanity. One of the enzymes which holds the most promise is called Telomerase. Scientists have found that Telomerase may be the key to solving some of humanity’s most difficult medical problems, aging and cancer.Telomerase is an enzyme our body produces to repair telomeres. Telomeres are genetic code at the end of our DNA strands that protects the integrity of our genes so that we may regenerate new cells during the process of mitosis. They act like an aglet of shoelace (the plastic coating on the end that keeps a shoelace from unraveling). The protection of telomeres ensures that each time there is mitosis of a cell the DNA strands do not connect to one another or are compromised.
A telomere will shrink in size during mitosis giving a finite age to cellular mitosis. That finite age is the number of times in which a cell will be able to split into two daughter cells. As we age our telomeres become shorter and the length of time between mitosis is longer. Scientists say that there is a link between aging and the length of your telomere.
Scientists who study aging, or biogerontologists, call the process of aging senescence. They claim that cell senescence is linked to human senescence and by repairing telomeres they can expand the longevity of a human being and even reverse some effects of aging. To a gerontologist aging is the worst disease of human kind and prolonging life through the use of telomerase supplements may be part of the cure.
While too little telomerase can cause aging, too much can cause cancer. A cancer is simply a harmful cell in the human body that is producing too fast and causes a tumor. In tumors scientists have found that telomeres are not shrinking and giving senescence to the cell. New therapies have been tested with approval from the FDA to test the effect of telomerase inhibiting medicine on malignant tumors and other cancer type cells. It is important to note that elevated levels of telomerase are not found in benign tumors only malignant. That means telomerase is also instrumental in diagnosing cancer.
Trials of telomerase based therapies have been conducted since the 1990’s but it has not been until recently that the public has been inundated with information on telomerase. However, the public has been eased into a telomerase encouraging diet that also is instrumental with preventing cancer. Over the years people have been educated on the positive effects of red wine, anti-oxidants, and other age prevention and cancer preventing diets. Both diets seem to contain the same food groups which confirm that a balanced system through a healthy lifestyle is the best preventative medicine in the world.
Resources:
http://www.senescence.info/
http://www.mesotheliomaweb.org/mesothelioma/treatment/targeted-therapy/
http://www.geron.com/media/pressview.aspx?id=1006
http://web.mit.edu/biology/guarente/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resveratrol
Pictures credited to T.A. Sciences. Great information on this resource. http://www.tasciences.com/introduction-to-telomere-science/
