Telomeres and Curing Old Age Disease

Wired News has an article about telomeres research. it turns out that people with longer telomeres live longer.

What is telomares you ask? That is the end tip of chromosomes, kind of like the tip of your shoe laces. I knew that years ago from when I worked security in a downtown office building.

There was a old but spry and healthy guy who had an office in the building and headed something called COADS - Curing Old Age Disease Society.

Years before that he had decided he was having too much fun to die and started financing any scientist who could "cure" ageing. One scientist introduced him to his research in telomeres.

Miller Quarles ended up being one of the first investors in Geron Corp. which is basicly a bunch of PHD's researching telomeres.

Telomeres is very much like the tip of a shoelace -- it keeps the dna from unraveling in chromosomes. Whenever a cell divides it uses up a bit of it. When it reaches the end the cell makes mistakes in dividing.

Here is a more recent article on Quarles beating prostate cancer in Life Extension Magazine. He is also a great beleiver in anti-oxidents and takes a number of pills each day.

The end of the article talks about his goal of a pill you could take every two years that would rebuild the telomeres by adding more telomerase enzyme to cells. A recent research finding is that telomarse rebuilds the telomeres and they have an estimate of how much is needed to replenish the amount used up every two years.

So remember telomeres - they can determine how long you live and hold the secret of pills that can let you live longer.

Telomerase is also important because it is the secret to cancer's wild growth - cancer cells don't die but just keep growing and spreading.

Controling telomerase is the secret to both extended life and helping to cure cancer.