Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: Fozzie on 11/05/2012 12:52:02
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I understand that telomeres on the ends of our chromosomes get shorter as a person ages and the cells finaly die when they reach the Hayflick Limit. Would it not then be possible to predict how much longer a person has potentailly got left to live my examining the length of their telomeres?
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I think you can be sure that insurance & pension companies would be more than interested in how long each individual has left to live.
Pension Co.
Ah! Mr Bloggs, I see you are going to live to the ripe old age of 109. Based on this, we have calculated your pension fund will pay you £0.98¾ per week.
I think you might find individuals somewhat less enamoured to know they can expect to kick the bucket the week after next.
AGHhhhhhh! I'm gonna croak, put the cat out, turn off the TV, lock the windows, where's my clean underwear? (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freesmileys.org%2Fsmileys%2Fsmiley-scared002.gif&hash=3f1be0d7852de58fc8d6d61614f2ddd3) (http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys.php)
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I think some telomeres may be associated with some diseases such as cancer, but not necessarily all diseases, or all causes of death. Not all cells would necessarily use up their telomeres at the same rate, although there may be certain rapidly dividing cells that would be representative of the body as a whole.
There have been some studies about activating or deactivating Telomerase (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase)