Telomere Tweaks Reverse Aging in Mice — Wired
Breakthroughs in Aging – CNN Video
Harvard scientists partially reverse aging in mice by altering an enzyme that prevents the break down of chromosomes.
I was watching CNN while watching breakfast this morning when this intreguing story about the reversal of aging in a rat study at Harvard came on the air. Elizebeth Cohen, one of their medical correspondents interviews the scientist and the study sounds encouraging.
Telomeres are an important portion of our genetic material which many scientitists believe is involved in the aging process. Its fairly straight forward — telemeres deteriorate in people and their is a corresponding decline in the ablity of cells to replicate without erorrs.
The scientiists according to Wired "tweaked" (I'm not sure what that means) the rat's telemeres so that the result was that they actually became more youthful. In the other accounts of the study, I found that the tweaking was done with enzymes.
I find the study encouraging as at age 62, my telemeres seem to be fading at what seems like an ever faster rate.
There is really no need for genetic engineering to activate telomerase as was done in the Depinho mouse model. There is about 20 years of research on Telomere activation. There are two receptors for estrogen on the TERT gene which controls this process. Whether you happen to be a human being or a mouse, the best way to increase telomerase activity, lengthen the telomeres and reverse aging is with the human bioidentical hormone, 17-Beta-Estradiol, also known as estrogen. In 1999, Kyo demonstrated that 17-Beta-Estradiol activates telomerase via direct and indirect effects on the hTERT promoter region. This was confirmed in 2000 by Silvia Misiti and again in 2009 by Rodrigo T. Calado from the NIH A recent December 2010 study from Imanishi from Japan showed that 17-Beta-Estradiol (estrogen) augments telomerase activity, thereby accelerating recovery after injury and reducing the effects of aging (reducing senescence). If this isn’t a description of anti-aging effects, I don’t know what is.
For more see:
http://jeffreydach.com/2010/12/03/anti-aging-breakthrough-with-telomerase-knockout-mice-by-jeffrey-dach-md.aspx
regards, jeffrey dach md