adminIt will soon be possible to find out your life expectancy by donating blood and paying about 20 thousand rubles, Spanish scientists promise, introducing technologies for estimating telomere length to the market.
However, Alexey Olovnikov, who theoretically predicted the “Nobel” telomerase, explained that this technique only gives an idea of the current state of health, and does not estimate life expectancy.
Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn agrees with him. Achievements in the study of telomeres – the terminal sections of DNA responsible for cell death and, as a result, the aging process, hit the front pages of the media the year before last in connection with the presentation of the corresponding Nobel Prize and since then continue to excite the minds of ordinary people.
Following the information about the invention of the “elixir of youth” based on telomerase, there was data on an inexpensive and commercially available test that will easily answer the question “cuckoo, cuckoo, how many years do I have left to live?” In the UK, the test should go on sale before the end of the year – the study will cost just £435 (about 20,000 rubles).
In the United States, Elizabeth Blackburn herself is involved in the commercialization of the technology, who, together with Carol Grider and Jack Szostak, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 2009 “for the discovery of the mechanism for protecting chromosomes by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.”
Despite the headlines about predicting lifespan, experts doubt the possibility of direct prediction. Blackburn herself carefully notes that the rate of telomere shortening is not constant and depends on external conditions.
Let us briefly recall how telomeres function in DNA. When a cell divides, it needs to double its DNA in order to pass on complete genetic material to its daughters. The enzymes responsible for duplication are unable to read data from the beginning to the very end of the chromosome. That is, if the ends of the chromosomes contained important genetic information, it would be lost over and over again during the reproduction of cells. Instead, division shortens the length of telomeres, the ends of DNA that carry blank genes. This ensures that DNA is copied correctly, however, when further shortening of the telomere becomes impossible, the cell loses its ability to divide and dies. Cell death is the cause of aging and death of the whole organism.
A special enzyme – telomerase – is able to “add” the lost sections of telomeres and ensure the actual immortality of the cell, however, it is active only in some types of cells, in particular, in stem cells and most cancer cells.
Scientists at the Spanish National Center for Cancer Research in Madrid have developed a commercially available age-determination technique that promises to estimate the rate of aging in a subject’s body and estimate their life expectancy. The authors of the technique promise patients to estimate their “biological age”, which can be either more or less than the usual age, called “chronological”.
“We know that people who are born with shorter telomeres live shorter lives. However, we do not yet know whether longer-than-normal telomeres increase lifespan. However, our test is highly accurate. We register very small differences in telomere length, the technology is very simple and fast, and several samples can be analyzed simultaneously. In addition, we effectively find the most dangerous, that is, the shortest telomeres,” said Maria Blasco, one of the authors of the development, who previously worked in the team of Nobel laureate Carol Greider.
The analysis itself will be similar to a simple blood test. Spanish scientists intend to collect them through European medical centers and conduct research at their base in Madrid. Modifications are also possible – analysis of saliva or oral swab. However, experts do not share the optimism of the Spaniards.
The Soviet (and now Russian) scientist Alexei Olovnikov, Ph.D. in Biology, a leading researcher at the Institute of Biochemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who theoretically predicted the existence of a mechanism that compensates for the shortening of telomeres (telomerase) even before the experimental studies of Blackburn and Greider, does not believe that the length of telomeres unambiguously indicates lifespan.
“This topic has been discussed in detail in the work of the group of Professor Tim Spector from King’s College London. He measured the length of telomeres in different categories of people and showed that it depends on the degree of stress of a person. For example, workers who are afraid of being fired have shorter telomeres than their supervisors. Moreover, the wives of these workers also have shortened telomeres compared to those who are not stressed. This means that different factors act on the length of telomeres, and of course, it is impossible to predict how long a person will live by the length of telomeres,” said Alexei Matveyevich. “It is impossible to predict how long a person will live from such a test, but such a test is useful in itself. This is a good test of your current condition,” he added. Elizabeth Blackburn herself points to the possibility of changing the rate of telomere shortening. “If the test shows that your telomeres are shortening too quickly, this should be a wake-up call for you to review your lifestyle and eliminate risk factors. Regular exercise, proper nutrition, and reduced stress levels reduce the rate at which telomeres shorten. On the contrary, chronic stress and smoking, for example, accelerate the reduction of telomeres https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere,” says Blackburn. “I changed my lifestyle myself by taking this test. First, I mastered some meditation techniques. I try to exercise as often as possible. If you don’t have time, walking can be a good alternative,” she concluded.