Does It All Come Down To This? You Are Stuck With Your Genes, But Can Do Something About Telomere Length

Last night's "Gerald and Sally DeNardo Lectureship" at Santa Clara University featured the University of California at San Francisco's Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D., 2009 Nobel Prize winner in the Physiology of Medicine. Speaking about telomeres, of which you, the reader have billions (2 per chromosome, 23 pairs of chromosomes per cell and more than 100,000,000,000 cells in your body), Professor Blackburn likened the full-length telomere to the intact tip of a ribbon shoelace, a structure which prevents unraveling and destruction.

Blackburn's research has disclosed that certain unicellular organisms, when undisturbed, have  built-in systems for preserving the length of each telomere through multiple cell divisions but that laboratory interference with that length-preservation results in shortened cell life (loss of immortality).  Going further, she and other scientists have discovered cellular mechanisms for preserving the length of the telomeres and scientific means for interfering with those cellular mechanisms.

People are not unicellular organisms living in Walden Pond, but Blackburn's discoveries have also demonstrated that peoples' lifetime events which result in shortened telomeres lead to the ability to predict life-shortening diseases including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The events are not genetic, as much as environmental and the good news is that some of them are under society's and our individual control. The bad news is that our population has not had convincing serious long-term commitment to doing things which stabilize or lengthen telomeres, improve our resistance to diseases, lengthen lives and reduce the cost of health care.

Blackburn cited adverse childhood events, chronic stress (including adult post traumatic stress disorder, pessimism and, in men,  hostility) as factors which she can associate with telomere-shortening and a corresponding poor survival prognosis. Stabilization and perhaps lengthening of telomeres is associated with increasing education, exercise and stress reduction.

So turn off the television, get off your rear end, take a pleasant walk, find sensible methods to relieve your stresses and stabilize (and lengthen?) your telomeres.  It is likely that these simple acts will help you to live better and longer! You can also stop blaming your parents for the "bad" genes they gave you since most of your health problems may stem from your own habits and environment.