July 7th, 2010
Stress, Telomeres, New Clinical Tests & the Real World
People who attended the Cardiff conference, WBI University or have heard my speeches or workshops, know that I emphasize the science of stress to convey the seriousness of bullying’s impact on people. The primary impact of bullying is the onset of stress-related diseases and other health complications.
Elizabeth Blackburn won the 2009 Nobel prize for Medicine and Physiology. I previously wrote about her work. Briefly, she discovered 20 years ago the telomere, chromosome-protecting caps at the end of strands of DNA. Telomere damage or shortening translates to advanced cellular aging.
Telomere = Greek for "end" (telos) and "part" (meros)
Research by Elissa Epel and Blackburn and others measured telomere length and telomerase enzyme levels to show that mothers who raise special needs children may have their lives shortened by between 9 and 12 years from the stress that they reported.
Now comes news that Epel and Blackburn at the University of California, San Francisco, are soliciting women ages 50 to 65 to volunteer for a study beginning August, 2010. The purposes are to develop a test for telomere length, to assess the correlation with lifestyle behaviors, and the reaction to learning how likely you are to live a long (or stress-shortened) life.
Here is an application of basic science to the real world. Is the telomere a predictor of longevity or overall health? Older genetic tests can predict one’s risk for cancer or Alzheimer’s. This may be the next big breakthrough.
To volunteer, women must be in good health and between ages 50-65. Call 415-476-7634 or e-mail knowyourtelomeres@ucsf.edu
Also read the July 5, 2010 article by Erin Allday in the San Francisco Chronicle
Tags: aging, Elissa Epel, Elizabeth Blackburn, genetic testing, stress, telomeres, UCSF
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at 1:01 pm and is filed under Announcements, Health Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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