How well we age is actually something we can control. We are learning more and more that there are correlations between our “aging,” in other words how long we remain healthy versus suffering from some form of chronic disease, and the length of the ends of our DNA called telomeres. Certainly, the idea of “lengthening your telomeres” is so much a part of the public discussion that products are using this as a catchphrase for marketing.
So I think it’s important to bring this whole notion of telomeres as markers of disease risk and perhaps more importantly as playing a mechanistic role in aging to a better level of understanding. Continue reading