Too toxic to ignore (original) (raw)

Telomeres and adversity

Nature volume 490, pages 169–171 (2012) Cite this article

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A stark warning about the societal costs of stress comes from links between shortened telomeres, chronic stress and disease, say Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Elissa S. Epel.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Elizabeth H. Blackburn is the 2009 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine and professor of biology and physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics.,
    Elizabeth H. Blackburn
  2. Elissa S. Epel is associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143, USA, and is part of several National Institute on Aging initiatives on stress research.,
    Elissa S. Epel

Authors

  1. Elizabeth H. Blackburn
  2. Elissa S. Epel

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Correspondence toElizabeth H. Blackburn.

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Competing interests

E.H.B. and E.S.E. are co-founders of Telome Health, a telomere measurement company.

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Blackburn, E., Epel, E. Too toxic to ignore.Nature 490, 169–171 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/490169a

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  1. Peter Gibson 12 October 2012, 11:03
    All very interesting but I think a careful study of the number and length of lines on one^?^s face or the number and size of hairy moles, will be found to be closely related to health and longevity. So rejuvenating face creams, if the adverts are to be believed, will increase life span. This would seem an easier method than rebuilding telomeres. Of course telomere length may simply be a reflection of some other ageing effect.
    A friend used to say and may still that passenger planes only stay in the air because the passengers believe it will. He may unfortunately wrong, because there is other evidence for how they might fly. Perhaps telomeres are a flight of fancy?
    Supposing that getting one^?^s ruler out and measuring telomeres tells us more than Dr Caligari could where does it get us? Nowhere, I think, unless one is a journalist or has research grant to study telomeres. This is falls into ? Send men to Mars^?^ syndrome. It is fun but largely pointless, I feel.
  2. Philippe Pognonec 16 October 2012, 03:01
    There is still hope ! I was worried after reading in the related story: «Tools that allow researchers to target a specific type of epigenetic modification to a single gene in a particular cell type in vivo will usher in a far more compelling phase of research. » as an approach to « treat » stress-related health problems... This may be the typical scientist distorted vision of a global picture. It would indeed be as exotic as treating obesity with drugs (or surgery) rather than food intake! Who on earth would be naive enough to do that, or worse, to finance that?? In this pleasant synthesis, Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Elissa S. Epel point to the fact that stress is mainly man-made. We could either try to pharmacologically fix its induced epigenetic alterations, or diminish the causative agent: stress. But the later solution may not result in new drug development... Or did I miss something?
    To finish, let me take a big risk here: did you notice that the two scientists who proposed that very ?simple? and logical solution, as opposed to the now traditional endless molecular tinkering, are both women?
    ;-)
  3. Vic Kley 20 October 2012, 13:34
    It would seem there is a tremendous opportunity for health and planning in the Telomere. This opportunity needs to be realized in fact. In no way am I referring to the actual rebuilding of Telomeres or other DNA treatments.