[blam]

Recently, we've had articles on FR about women and men who are born from aging (older) parents and that they are born with shorter telomeres.

The older the parent = Shorter telomeres.

[Renegade]

Guess it all depends on the " long or the short of it !"

[AZLiberty]

Just goes to show, size matters.

[Dysart]

Other lines of research suggest that shortened telomeres might result from the accumulation of free radicals

That's possible. Further study of all the elements that comprise heart disease (beyond the usual suspects) will no doubt reveal new discoveries. However, shortening telomores, I believe, have some regulatory function in the cell replication process. And we know the danger in uncontrolled cell division--cancer. So this shortening is natural and protective in one way. Learning to turn it on/off in a specific organ would be challenging, and the jury is still out on whether it's even desirable. This area of research is intriguing and I'll be looking for more studies.

Thanks for the link here.

[darkangel82]

ping

[LibFreeOrDie]

Same problem with clones.

http://bioethics.net/journal/j_articles.php?aid=104

Shortened telomeres was one cause suggested for Dolly the cloned sheep's rapid aging and shorter than normal life.

[muawiyah]

Chronic inflammation can have many causes. For instance you might have Celiac Disease, a severe auto-immune response to gluten (found in wheat, barley and rye). It's genetic in origin. About 7 million Americans carry at least one copy of this gene. Those with 2 copies (about 2.5 million) can develop the disease.

Just to a search for celiac disease t-cells in www.google.com to discover more than any human should know about this.

[Old Professer]

The article seems to suggest that the statins were not of any direct help and may have been worse than the placebo.