Our telomere length is a measure of our youthfulness.

How do our cells know when to stop, age and die ? What’s the technology ?

Aging kills 100,000 people every day. That’s twice as much as any other causes all together. In developed countries it shares 90% of all death.
Each of us ( from the 6 feet giant to  a 4 feet Lilliput) human being is conceived as a single cell inside the mother’s womb  on day-1. If all of us started as a single cell, How do we become the 100 kilo adults ?

Because that cell went on dividing and dividing till it died. Each cell divided exactly into two equal halves except the Gene part. The Genes inside each cell double up and are shared equally by the two daughter cells. Any loss of chromosome halfway can cause serious medical problems like albino, hemophilia and so on.

   To guard the integrity of genetic materials, we have telomere caps at the end of each Gene. Just like plastic clips at the end of shoe laces.

Thus each cell that we have today, the skin cell or hair cell has already divided 10,000 times and more.

How do these cells know when to stop, age and die ? What’s the technology ?

Dr Elizabeth Blackburn precisely found out that to win the 2009 Noble prize in physiology and medicine. Her area of research was these telomeres.

  She found out that with each cell division our chromosomes double but not the telomere caps. With each cell division, the human telomere length shortens. When it completely disappears the cell cannot replicate it’s genes anymore and dies. That’s aging.
So when the telomeres in your hair cells shorten, hair cell stops producing pigment and hair becomes grey. The skin cells stop producing elastin, and our skin wrinkles, and so on.
… …
Except the cancer cells. They produce an unique enzyme, telomerase that regenerates these fading telomeres. So cancer cells go on dividing non-stop to produce a tumor. So are also stem cells which go on replicating without stop.

  As we humans age, our telomeres do shorten, and remarkably, that shortening is aging us. The longer your telomeres, the better off you are.

Length of telomere is a measure of youthfulness of the cell.

Dr Blackburn standardized the measurement of LTL ( Leucocyte_telomere_ length) to study the aging process of any living cells. low telomerase levels are associated with accelerated telomere shortening. Studies in past 20 years show that telomere attrition is contributing to our risks of getting cardiovascular diseases,  Alzheimer’s, some cancers and diabetes, the very conditions many of us die of.

-2-

Dr Elizabeth Blackburn did one memorable study of 5000 mothers of physically and mentally challenged or critically ill children.

Taking care of a child with a chronic illness with bleak prognosis is one of the worst stressful conditions especially for a mother who often is the sole care giver till the end.

   All these stressed mothers have one common thing – a low telomerase level. But there are two patterns. One group of mothers have higher levels than the other group.

 The mothers who have accepted the challenge, have less perceived stress than those who resented. These mothers have consistently a higher telomerase level and less chronic conditions. They are better adjusted and comparatively healthier than the other group.

  Other things that increase your telomerase level are a positive outlook, healthy food habits, regular meditation, inclusive lifestyles.
So Dr Blackburn’s Noble winning thesis says that a positive outlook in life can improve your health even at cellular level and can reduce the greying of your hair, wrinkles in your skin, reduce the risk of Diabetes, Cardiac and cancers as well.

Perceived stress is more dangerous than the actual stress.