Hack Your Telomeres to Live a Longer and Stronger Life TC Luoma - T Nation
go to original June 6, 2022

What Are Telomeres? (The Jackson Laboratory)

People always talk about how different factors affect lifespan. Some blame a shorter than average life almost entirely on bad genes. Others credit lifestyle factors like stress, bad nutrition, or lack of exercise.

Regardless of which "macro" factors you credit for premature aging and shortened lifespan, they're likely related to the same micro factor, and that micro factor has to do with telomere shortening. Luckily, there are a few things you can do about it.

What Are Telomeres?

Telomeres are tiny strands of species-specific DNA sequences located at the distal ends of chromosomes, but unlike most DNA sequences, they don't code for any proteins. Instead, they prevent chromosomes from "unraveling" so they don't fuse with other chromosomes and cause mutations or accelerate aging.

Telomere pioneer Elizabeth Blackburn compares them to aglets, the plastic thingies on the ends of shoelaces that keep them from fraying.

We're born with a finite number of these biological aglets. On average, each cell is gifted with about 15,000 base pairs (the pairs of nucleotides connecting complementary strands of DNA or RNA), and each time a cell divides, we lose from as little as 10 to as many as a thousand of them. This phenomenon is called the "end-replication problem."

Cells are limited to a fixed number of divisions. Use up all the telomeres in a cell – wear the chromosomes down to the nub – and the cell commits apoptosis: cellular suicide. If too many cells commit apoptosis, you get old and sick. Then you die.

All those "macro" causes of aging could, in one way or another, lead to premature telomere shortening or, equally bad, the inability of your cells to restore telomere length and/or integrity.

Take heart, though. We know plenty about the care and feeding of telomeres so that you can increase your chances of living a long, healthy life.

Learn more at T Nation