The possibility to live forever, a reality

What are your thoughts on the research of telomeres and what it can do for you, or others in the future? Telomeres: As cells divide, their DNA splits in half to form two new cells – but a bit of genetic information is lost at the end of each strand with each division. That's what telomeres are for – they contain a bunch of useless DNA that acts as a buffer zone so that no important DNA is lost from our chromosomes. Gradually, over time, the telomere erodes away to a level where each cell division actually starts destroying bits of important DNA – and this gets to a point where the cell can no longer reproduce itself. You can imagine what that starts doing to bodily organs as time goes by. So in a way, telomeres are there as a built-in limit to how many times a cell can divide itself – they're part of the built-in biological clock that causes aging, body deterioration and death. Cancer cells also consist of an excess number of telomeres, yet if the growth of such cancers could be prevented when injected directly with telomeres, your body could repair itself regardless of age/condition. This obviously raises questions of personal opinion, and/or faith as well. How far should this research go?

All the way. The flaw won't be with the research or its findings. The flaw will be with the people. These kind of flaws will always simmer until they are confronted. The new technology will force humanity to take a good look at itself to decide how it wants to proceed.

This research isn't really going anywhere. Even if you could create telomeres that don't shorten there are a thousand other problems that will prevent this doing much good. 1. Many important cells don't (or very rarely) divide anyway such as neurons and muscle cells (including for the heart). These cells will still age and lose effectiveness or develop disease. 2. Even if you prevent damage to DNA that occurs after telomeres are shortened, there is still a natural occurrence of mutations through cell division. 3. Telomeres don't prevent or repair the damage in dna due to external carcinogens such UV light, smoke, etc. 4. Telomeres won't really affect the course of most diseases. If you have atherosclerosis and your arteries get clogged, the length of your telomeres are irrelevant. 5. Your lifespan and the lifespan of cells is much more complicated than the length of a telomere. For example, mice have a short lifespan but their telomeres are longer than in humans. Having said all of that - telomere research can be beneficial, but it has very strong limitations and so there's nothing here for humanity to really ponder over.

Of course there is. As you said, we may not have unlocked the fountain yet, but when it becomes a possibility, should we? Though that argument can be made for many issues.

That is very impressive Drmario. So all in all, this is merely a hype subject and it does not lend itself to the title claimed by it, its just for minor benefit? Edit - One set of statements that did confuse me as to the benefit of this research is that during the execution on mice, they managed to not slow the aging process, but reverse it in the mice. They stated that all bodily functions of older mice were rejuvenated slowly to that of young mice, although I have no understanding as to how if that is true.

@Jinsei - if you want to talk hypotheticals sure, we can ponder over eternal life. But you're never going to get eternal life from researching telomeres. You have a better chance of finding a fountain of youth in the amazon. @Risen - yeah, most things like this are hyped. I don't mean to say it's useless research or anything. It is rather interesting, but the media loves to pump up everything. Edit - I doubt they understand how that is true either. But also lots of things work in mice and not humans. I would have to read their published work to say anything more.

well whatever they might find in mice studies involving telomeres isn't all that applicable to humans since telomerase is turned off in pretty much everything except germ cells for humans while mice can make it throughout their lifespans. Also while there are telomerase activating compounds, they lead to cancer so mmm. I see the potential benefits in researching telomeres in terms of cancer treatment and possibly the conditions that can come with old age, diabetes and whatnot. But in terms of reversing the actual aging process in humans? I'm not too sure about that. The science just isn't even close to being able to make that assumption.

How well is aging understood in humans? As far as I know it's considered to be cumulative effect of multiple issues. Which would mean that any hopes of countering it would have to be the MIRV missile of medicine.

Sorry I'm on break from school and so I'm bored = really long answer. I'm not a weapons person, but I think I get your analogy. That's actually the approach with almost everything in medicine. However, even what we may consider simple now is actually complex - and aging represents a culmination of many of those complexities. Of course we can't use a single solution to combat aging, but there are some reasons that even combination approaches aren't working. The first and foremost problem is that the human body is flawed. That's simple enough to understand on the surface. Yet, this means that unless you somehow fix all these flaws there is very little that can be done about aging. I'm going to use two main examples. One for the male body and one for the female body. Obviously we know males usually have higher levels of testosterone. Many of the important effects of testosterone are through a different form, dihydotestosterone (DHT). The male body has a prostate gland, which grows in response to DHT. DHT also happens to have a significant role in the development of prostate cancer. As a male, if you live long enough you will get prostate cancer. But you can't just say let's stop the DHT because this has normal, positive roles in the body. Therefore you would block DHT in a man with prostate cancer (or enlargement also if they have symptoms), but not prior to this. Even if you prevent the rest of a man's body from aging, he will still eventually get prostate cancer. Now for the other example. We'll go over to another hormone, estrogen. We know that at menopause there is a decrease in estrogens (specifically less production of estriol). This leads to increased risk for health problems such as osteoporosis and heart disease. But what happens if we provide a post menopausal woman with estrogen? She probably gets cancer. Even naturally produced estrogen, linked with the menstrual cycle, may cause cancer. For this reason, a woman who has a late menopause, does not get pregnant, or waits a long time to get pregnant will have an increased risk of cancer. If you combat aging, you will likely delay menopause leading to increased incidence of certain female reproductive cancers. These are just two of the simpler examples. We aren't even close to a time where we can even really think about truly "treating" aging. My short answer is this: not only do we not know much about aging, we probably misunderstand a lot about it. While you're right to say it is a cumulative of multiple issues, that in itself is a drastic understatement. Also referring to aging as a problem to be fixed is most likely at its core a misunderstanding on our part of what aging is.

I think some jellyfish can(in a way) be considered immortal... but they kind of still do have lifespans and just... restart a growth cycle sort of. I don't see it as something we should do since there'd be the whole overpopulation issue... Then there'd probably be more violent crime and overall negativity from people wanting each other dead. The only way I'd see it as good is if you're going into space to look for new planets, or something, and needed to stay alive for however many years it takes to find one. That'd be a sci-fi plot there. XD