Telomeres and death

The article I read discuesses the the effects of having short telomeres are. We know that short telomeres get smaller as a person gets older and that some diseases are linked to having shorter telomeres. The researchers in this article wanted to see if there was a link between short telomeres and poor health.  Researchers at the University of California measured the telomere length in 110,266 people. This study is still on going. They did discover that when the telomeres get critically short, the chances of an individual dying increase. The death risk is equivalent to "people who drink 20 to 30 alcoholic beverages per week." The research study did confirm that as a person ages their telomeres get shorter. They study also noted that men over 75 and women over 80 tended to have longer telomeres than people who were younger and died. The researches believe that the telomeres don't actually get longer when you get into old age but rather those individuals died who had shorter telomeres. It was found that people who smoked or drank heavily were more likely to have shorter telomeres, and higher levels of education were associated with longer telomeres. The study is still going and more data needs to be collected.

The reason I found this article interesting is because it shows another sign to living longer or dying earlier. It shows how small and simple molecules can have such a great affect on humans. It also relates to how everything in the human body is a produced a certain way and the lengths of telomeres can have such a great impact on humans. Another reason I found this article interesting was because what the researchers found also correlates to what another group of researchers found in birds. Birds with shorter or trunacated telomeres had a greater chance of dying. Possible more research done on the birds could help improve our understanding on our own physiology.

Article
Bird Article