3 ms·
> As you age, your telomeres get shorter The human body has a mechanism to reset telomere length during reproduction; i.e., babies are born with "full length"
by mysterypie 10y ago
> As you age, your telomeres get shorter
The human body has a mechanism to reset telomere length during reproduction; i.e., babies are born with "full length" telomeres.
Can anyone shed light on why this mechanism is so hard to trigger in an adult? What are the technical difficulties in artifically lengthening telomeres?
- svachalek 10y agoI'm no biologist, but from what I understand the body actually does maintain telomeres over time, it just doesn't keep up with the loss from cell division over a lifetime. Purely speculating, death to "old age" is rare in nature so the process merely has to be "good enough" for our genes to compete rather than perfect enough for immortality.