Telomeres, Aging & How To Live Longer

Everything seems to become worse for our bodies the older we get. But what does aging mean in a biological context? And are there any ways to delay aging?

Today we talk about cellular aging. Cellular aging is defined by the so called hallmarks of aging which include telomere attrition, stem cell arrest, cellular senescence and genomic instability among other factors. There is a lot of research being conducted in the fields of each of these hallmarks.

Our chromosomes are linear meaning they comprise two ends, respectively. In each of these ends we find telomeres (repetitive sequences; in humans they comprise TTAGGG). These repetitive sequences have a lot of crucial functions for the stability of our chromosomes. For instance, they form loops together with proteins in order to protect our chromosomes from being fused by our own DNA repair mechanisms. Furthermore, telomeres are the solution to the so called end-replication problem. The end-replication problem arises while we copy our DNA upon cell division. Every time we replicate our DNA, the very end of the chromosome cannot be fully copied resulting in a slow, gradual shortening of the chromosome. The enzyme telomerase can increase the lengths of telomeres by adding its repetitive sequence. However, telomerase is normally only highly active during early development and the older we get the shorter our telomeres become. There is a certain point at which our cells only comprise a fraction of its original telomere repetitions and they stop dividing.

There are many implications to replicative senescence such as stem cell exhaustion, which is another aspect of aging. Many age-related diseases are associated with the inability of these stem cells to divide. If, for instance, hematopoietic stem cells in our bone marrow become senescent, anemia and an impaired immune system can develop. If mesenchymal stem cells are affected osteoporosis and decreased fracture repair can occur.

Nobel laureate Elizabeth and her colleagues and found out that chronic stress can have a negative impact on telomerase activity and the lengths of chromosomes (in this study, it was found that mothers of chronically ill children have 48% less telomerase activity). Another studies investigated the relationship between telomere lengths and lifestyle changes in men with prostate cancer. These men had to under change their habits over a period of five years: They had to have a special diet high in whole foods and low in fat. They walked 6x a week for 30 minutes each. They started yoga and relaxation exercises and they formed a social support group which met 1 x a week. Not only were the telomere lengths of these men longer than those measured in a control group but they also slightly increased over time.

This gives us some hope that we can actually slow down telomere attrition through lifestyle changes leading to potential longer lives.

For your further research:

Epel, Elissa S., et al. "Accelerated telomere shortening in response to life stress." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101.49 (2004): 17312-17315.
López-Otín, Carlos, et al. "The hallmarks of aging." Cell 153.6 (2013): 1194-1217.
Ornish, Dean, et al. "Effect of comprehensive lifestyle changes on telomerase activity and telomere length in men with biopsy-proven low-risk prostate cancer: 5-year follow-up of a descriptive pilot study." The lancet oncology 14.11 (2013): 1112-1120.

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About Clemens Steinek:
CLEMENS STEINEK is a postgraduate student/youtuber (LifeLabLearner) who is currently conducting stem cell research in Germany.

[GodBoredWas]

I saw your comment on a SciShow video. I came here because the comment looked like you are very passionate about the topic, glad to see I was correct. I have subscribed and will continue to watch your videos. Thanks!

[Biomeducated]

informative, so well explained! Great SciComm for the general public!
Almost at 1K subs, and very well deserved, L3! Keep at it (while you become more aged ;))

[internex]

Fascinating Video about an interesting topic.
Will follow your videos from now on as I'm quite interested in Biology and medical topics, great work! :)

[Azmodaeus]

i love your content, it is informative and organic

[ssiddarth]

Just saw a comment of yours on scishow and decided to come to your channel. After seeing this video I can say that I made the right decision. Loved the video as I myself am keenly interested in this topic and you explained it pretty well too. Hence you have 1 more subscriber 🤗

[xShadow_God]

Wow, less than 500 views? This is some good stuff, you deserve more. You should do more videos about aging, I think this topic is very interesting.

[veeezis]

Yes, this is interesting to me. Thank you! Hope to seeing more from you!

Also here from the SciShow comments.

[nutzeeer]

I am very interested in aging! I want to research in that field

[blepblep]

i saw your comment on chubbyemu's video. and clicked on your channel.
and actually your channel is great man! it's rlly educating. keep it up!

[chadb]

Yes, please make more videos on this topic. I appreciate the way you present the information, w/enough science/research to support and in brevity to increase likelihood for attentiveness throughout... as well as giving space for questions and dialogue on the content. Thank you, just subscribed today.
Sprechen sie Deutsch? Ich mache ein wenig. I was stationed in Germany when I was 19-20yrs old (Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels).

[misterfox]

This made me look at life in a new way

[brokkoliomg]

So how far are we from getting a treatment for aging? I mean taking in some pills would be nice but I would also be okay with a life-change-plan. Basically like a diet what one has to do, but way more specific and further fetched. Sure, probably you would need to do a test for your genetics and the plan would be coodinated with it, but that would be fine for me.
Great video!

[billsipsis]

I am going to ask a question. Many scientists believe that if we activate telomerase we are going to have cancer. But in order to get cancer there has to be instability in cell cycle. If telomerase doesnt affect cell cycle then will we be able to reverse age? Except that there are also the yamanaka factors that may in the future play a vital role in reversing the aging process. Dont forget that the activation of telomerase didnt cause cancer on mice in 2010 and mice turned young again.

[sonarbuge]

I’m only watching this video learn how to make myself immortal

[sonarbuge]

3:34 why can’t the end be fully copied?

[jordanrejon]

Damn idk how it took me so long to find you I love small channels

[clivebraner]

So de-stressing is important for increasing telomeres, so as stress creates a chemical reaction in the body, is there a food that can chemically react with your body for that de-stressing effect even if you're still stressed? A bio hack so to speak...

[joecurran]

Is there any research about consuming teas and telomere lenghts?

[TheRadioAteMyTV]

Ok, you were right, the Hey Jude example was kind of brilliant, but the click bait with baby Yoda not being utilized was a HUGE disappointment. You knew enough to use it in the thumbnail, why not put him in the video too? I don't get that.

You didn't use the shoe string example I am used to, and I got most of what you were saying, I will watch it a few more times to get it better. You did cover how stress is bad for telomeres, but you didn't talk about how starving yourself extends life longer than anything we have found. If you have that in another video I would appreciate the link. I am doing a lesson on life span so it will help a lot.

[Azmodaeus]

i'm 25 years old ( and 6 months) to be specific lol.