Unravelling the secrets of ageing

doi:10.1136/bmj.a3024

Published 8 January 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.a3024
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:a3024

Feature

Genetics

Unravelling the secrets of ageing

Susan Mayor, freelance journalist

¹ London

susanmayor@mac.com

Susan Mayor reports on research into the role of telomeres indisease and ageing

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Evidence is growing that every chromosome in the body carriesa marker that counts down from the day of birth to death, ratherlike a cellular sand clock. These biological timers are telomeres—repeatsequences of DNA that, together with associated proteins, capthe ends of chromosomes and protect them from degradation, justas the plastic coating on the ends of shoelaces stops them fromfraying.

Research has shown that telomeres shorten with each cell division,gradually marking off the time to cell death.¹ This shorteningis accelerated in diseases associated with ageing—particularlycardiovascular disease and cancers—and in the presenceof risk factors for these diseases such as obesity and highblood pressure. The hope for the future is that measurementsof telomere length could be used to detect early disease, allowingpreventive measures to be put in place, and eventually thatmethods will be found to slow or even reverse . . . [Full text of this article]