Arguing for Telomerase Therapies to Treat Aging

At the high level, the arguments for deploying telomerase-based therapies to lengthen average telomere length in various tissues and cell populations as a treatment for aging have not changed much over the past decade. The data and details have evolved with progress in investigative research, but the digest of the views held by the faction who think this way remains this: that average telomere length is enough of a cause of issues in aging, as opposed to being a reflection of other processes with few secondary effects of its own, to merit addressing. My view of the state of research is still that average telomere length looks very much like a signature of aging, not a cause of aging. It is a measure of some combination of stem cell activity, meaning the pace of delivery of new cells with long telomeres, and rates of cell division, as telomeres shorten a bit every time a cell divides. Since stem cell activity declines with age, so too does average telomere length - and the problem here is the loss of tissue maintenance by stem cells, not the length of telomeres per se. Researchers have demonstrated that telomerase therapy can extend life in mice, most likely by improving stem cell activity in old age, one of the many ways in which it is possible to force old stem cells do more work than they have evolved to undertake at that stage in life. This approach to treating issues of old age is heading in the direction of human medicine, at the usual glacial pace of later stage ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs