Scientists have shows on a single key to long life zero: an inherited mechanism of cellular repair, which helps prevent the aging process and in the prevention of diseases, perhaps. Research say that the discovery could lead to anti-aging.
The study covers the telomeres, the ends of chromosomes, the plastic spikes that laces been compared avoid Come Undone. Telomeres were already known to play an important role in aging, and their discovery led to the Nobel Prize for medicine this year.
The new study, which focused on Ashkenazi Jews, those who had lived the longest of a hyperactive version of the enzyme telomerase, which builds telomeres inherited.
Indeed, the centenarians in a top-notch mechanic, body work 24 / 7 repair equipment likely that the body works, compared to a normal human control center cell, the body time to wear over time.
"The man of exceptional longevity are better able to keep the length of telomeres, said Yousin Suh, associate professor of medicine and genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University." And we found that they owe their longevity, at least partially, to advantageous variants of genes involved in telomere maintenance. "
The results were this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Telomeres are short DNA fragments, which specialized chromosomes of the CAP, that tell a cell what to do. Over time, the cells divide again and again to keep the body alive. But shorten with each cell division, telomeres. If they are too short, the cell stops dividing and falls into a state called senescence. Vital tissues are no longer manufactured, and the organs begin to fail.
All this was known, and telomeres were central to the anti-aging research for a year. There were, however, found no panacea, increase the average life expectancy.
In the new study, Suh and colleagues studied Ashkenazi Jews, a homogeneous population, whose genetics are well studied. Three groups were part of the research: A very old (average age 97), but healthy group of 86 persons, 175 of their descendants, and a control group of 93 children of parents who have lived a normal life.
"Our research attempts to answer two questions," says researcher Gil Atzmon Einstein said in a statement. "People who live longer tend to have long telomeres, and if so, could variations in their genes, on behalf of telomerase for their long telomeres?
"Yes" on both accounts, the researchers conclude.
The old man had "inherited mutated genes that its telomerase-making system, additional active and effective for the maintenance of telomere length," write the researchers make. "Most of these people were spared age-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes that cause the most deaths among the elderly.
"Our results suggest that telomere length and telomerase variants of genes that help people live a long time, perhaps by linking them from the diseases of old age," said Suh. "We are now trying to understand the mechanism by which these genetic variants of telomerase maintain telomere length in centenarians. Ultimately, it may be possible for drugs that telomerase develop our centenarians were blessed to imitate."
