{"id":6237,"date":"2014-05-23T09:02:22","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T16:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myuctv.tv\/?p=6237"},"modified":"2014-05-23T09:02:22","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T16:02:22","slug":"telomeres-tiny-keys-to-the-fountain-of-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/uctv\/telomeres-tiny-keys-to-the-fountain-of-youth\/","title":{"rendered":"Telomeres: Tiny Keys to the Fountain of Youth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uctv.tv\/shows\/How-Can-Telomeres-Cause-Age-Related-Disease-28052\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/myuctv.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/telomeres-300x205.jpg\" alt=\"telomeres\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-6243\" \/><\/a>Our time is limited. The clock is ticking. If we&#8217;re fortunate enough to escape disease, accidents, or war intact, then at some point our bodies eventually turn against us. What causes our bodies to age? Why don&#8217;t we simply <i>live on<\/i> (until that proverbial anvil lands atop our unsuspecting heads)? <\/p>\n<p>Turns out, telomeres are one piece of the aging puzzle. They act like tiny timers &#8211; and once they run out, well, so do we. Chromosomes constantly replicate themselves through cell division, and telomeres are the protective end-parts of chromosomes. When chromosomes are copied, however, these telomeres shorten a little bit with each round of cell division. <\/p>\n<p>The good news? This shortening is kept in check by the enzyme <i>telomerase<\/i> which elongates the telomeres. (Whew.) <\/p>\n<p>The bad news? We have a limited supply of telomerase. (D&#8217;oh!)<\/p>\n<p>What happens when our bodies cannot effectively elongate telomeres? The short answer is, we begin to age. People who cannot effectively elongate telomeres at a relatively youthful age may develop age-related diseases such as bone marrow failure, immune senescence and pulmonary fibrosis. This is known as Telomere Syndrome.<\/p>\n<p>Carol Greider, 2009 Nobel Laureate and professor at Johns Hopkins University, discusses how this seemingly benign structure on the end of a chromosome &#8211; the telomere &#8211; can affect human disease and aging.<\/p>\n<p>Watch this informative video to learn more: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uctv.tv\/shows\/How-Can-Telomeres-Cause-Age-Related-Disease-28052\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">How can telomeres cause age-related disease?<\/a>, part of the UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lecture series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our time is limited. The clock is ticking. If we&#8217;re fortunate enough to escape disease, accidents, or war intact, then at some point our bodies eventually turn against us. What causes our bodies to age? Why don&#8217;t we simply live on (until that proverbial anvil lands atop our unsuspecting heads)? Turns out, telomeres are one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,28,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myuctv.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}