Telomere Science still has a lot of work ahead of itself…there are many factors that contribute to the aging process…so if a test can predict when I will die…perhaps in the future we can manipulate the strands of our DNA to extend our lives to 120 years of age. It sounds like science fiction ….but remember many ideas have started out as an impossibility…only to develop into a feasible application to enhance the quality of life.
http://www.yepod.com/?p=14786
Pass it on,
Dr Anthony
This article titled “Can a blood test really tell you when you’ll die?” was written by Giles Tremlett, for The Guardian on Tuesday 11th October 2011 19.00 UTC
As a taxi takes me across Madrid to the laboratories of Spain’s National Cancer Research Centre, I am fretting about the future. I am one of the first people in the world to provide a blood sample for a new test, which has been variously described as a predictor of how long I will live, a waste of time or a handy indicator of how well (or badly) my body is ageing. Today I get the results.
Some newspapers, to the dismay of the scientists involved, have gleefully announced that the test – which measures the telomeres (the protective caps) on the ends of my chromosomes – can predict when I will die. Am I about to find out that, at least statistically, my days are numbered? And, if so, might new telomere research suggesting we can turn back the hands of the body’s clock and make ourselves “biologically younger” come to my rescue?
The test is based on the idea that biological ageing grinds at your telomeres. And, although time ticks by uniformly, our bodies age at different rates. Genes, environment and our own personal habits all play a part in that process. A peek at your telomeres is an indicator of how you are doing. Essentially, they tell you whether you have become biologically younger or older than other people born at around the same time.
The key measure, explains María Blasco, a 45-year-old molecular biologist, head of Spain’s cancer research centre and one of the world’s leading telomere researchers, is the number of short telomeres. Blasco, who is also one of the co-founders of the Life Length company which is offering the tests, says that short telomeres do not just provide evidence of ageing. They also cause it. Often compared to the plastic caps on a shoelace, there is a critical level at which the fraying becomes irreversible and triggers cell death. “Short telomeres are causal of disease because when they are below a [certain] length they are damaging for the cells. The stem cells of our tissues do not regenerate and then we have ageing of the tissues,” she explains. That, in a cellular nutshell, is how ageing works. Eventually, so many of our telomeres are short that some key part of our body may stop working.
The research is still in its early days but extreme stress, for example, has been linked to telomere shortening. I think back to a recent working day that took in three countries, three news stories, two international flights, a public lecture and very little sleep. Reasonable behaviour, perhaps, for someone in their 30s – but I am closer to my 50s. Do days like that shorten my expected, or real, life-span?
People with similar worries – or, perhaps, just Woody Allen-style neuroses about their health – have begun to contact the company set up by Blasco. Requests have poured in from around the world since a headline writer at the Independent, perhaps misled by Life Length‘s ambiguous name, invited readers to find out about “The £400 test that tells you how long you’ll live.” The internet did the rest.
Originally set up to help researchers and the pharmaceutical, health food and cosmetics industries test the impact of their products on telomeres, the flood of individual requests has caught Blasco’s still tiny company by surprise. But the test is available, as of this month, via doctors in Spain and Portugal and there are plans to make it easier to carry out in the UK and the US as soon as possible. It sees a potential gold-mine in testing of what it calls people’s “biological age” – though it is by no means alone in the field. So what can Blasco tell me about my test?
“You actually have very good news,” she says, pointing at a chart that looks as if it has been blasted by shotgun pellets. My telomeres – especially the more dangerous, shortest ones – are in better shape than would be normal for my age. The pellet points are individual results from those people who have been tested and introduced into this database so far, and the red dot representing my blood sample is on the better side of the two graphs Blasco shows me. One graph shows median telomere length, while the other shows how many crucially short telomere endings I have. In each case, a line on the graph shows the average result against age. The test on some 100,000 of my telomeres, compared with the other results on the admittedly small database being used by Life Length when this test was done in the summer, give me a “biological age” six years below my real age. With only 90 other men on the chart so far, all with different lifestyles and genetic backgrounds to mine, I should avoid feeling smug. Eventually, when there are thousands or more on the database, I might get a better idea of what results people more like me should expect. I have a reasonably healthy lifestyle, after all, and previous generations on both sides of my family have been long-lived.
However, according to a New York Times interview with 2009 Nobel prize-winner Carol Greider – who Blasco trained under – individual telomere tests are not much use. “The science really isn’t there to tell us what the consequences are of your telomere length,” she said.
Blasco, obviously, disagrees. So does Elizabeth Blackburn, who shared the Nobel prize for telomere research with Greider and Jack Szostak, and has set up her own Telome Health company to start offering tests later this year.
Blasco compares the current state of telomere testing to the early days of cholesterol tests – and believes it should become common once the price drops and research is done to beef up databases, improve interpretation and create telomere-restoring treatments. “This is a different kind of marker. It is a new, molecular marker. Even though we measure telomere length in blood cells, it has been shown to be an indicator of the degree of telomere shortening in the whole organism,” she says. “And we think it is very powerful, based on what we know from hard science.” Even so, she is insistent that the test is not a magic measure of individual life length. “We don’t tell anyone how long they will live.
“It is the doctor – and we want to do this with doctors – who will tell you what is known about the meaning of this measurement and what you can do and what you cannot do,” says Blasco. In fact, the benefits of telomere science still lie mostly in the future. As with early cholesterol tests, a doctor is currently unable to tell you much about what those results mean – or what you can do about a bad result, beyond fairly obvious advice about looking after your health.
I notice that a few of the 90 men on my chart have apparently alarming results. Their telomeres indicate a “biological age” 20 years or more higher than their real age. This means that, at least statistically, they may be much closer to death than most people their age. One of these men comes from a family with a long history of early cancers, according to Life Length’s CEO Stephen Matlin. He has offered those with worryingly high results a free second test after three months, to see whether anything has changed. My report also warns, however, that results may reflect temporary illness or ongoing medical treatments – effectively skewing them. And some results on the chart look plain bizarre. One tester, for example, appears to have – at least statistically – a biological age of around 120. Two people aged above 60, together with a clutch of 30-year-olds, have an estimated biological age below zero – presumably because their telomeres are in better shape than might be expected of the average baby. Life Length said this reflected the fact that little research had been done on the telomeres of the very young.
Individual testing, then, is still in nappies. Far more exciting are the possible future advances to come from telomere research, says Blasco. “One is telomerase activation, because of its potential to reverse ageing. And proving which diseases can benefit from telomerase activation, in order for this to be something druggable.”
“Some of the new [research] papers appearing in top journals are to do with telomorase activation,” she says. “That is one aspect. The other is that we are seeing a lot of epidemiological studies showing correlations between telomere length and certain diseases, and which habits are good or bad for telomere length.”
She says the idea that telomeres can be “re-elongated” and, hence, that biological age can be reversed does not open the door to immortality – even if scientists have been able to extend a mouse’s age by up to 40%. “That’s a lot, but nobody has been able to make a mouse that is immortal,” she says.
It does, however, throw up philosophical and ethical dilemmas. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for example, refuses to approve drugs that are simply designed to prevent ageing. “Although I – and many more scientists – believe ageing is the cause of diseases, this is not perceived like that yet by the FDA,” says Blasco. “But what is clear is that there are a number of diseases associated with ageing which are caused because our cells age.”
Activating telomerase to counter that, she says, might help prevent major illnesses and allow drugs to be approved by the FDA. If drugs are found to activate telomerase and prevent, say, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease or some cardiovascular problems then the inevitable result will be not just a healthier life, but also a longer one.
Blackburn agrees that the idea that the new tests can tell you your life length is silly, but she insists that the evidence connecting telomere length and disease risk is becoming clearer.
“We and other groups are seeing clear statistical links between telomere shortness and risk for a variety of diseases that are becoming very common, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers,” she told the nature.com website in August. “We have also looked at chronic psychological stress, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and more and more we see associations with telomere shortness. There are even links with education — in one study telomere shortness was related to not finishing school. We’re seeing the data unfolding in front of us. A lot of them are not published yet.”
So what has telomere testing done for me? Not a lot, frankly, though I might have reacted differently had I been dangerously off the chart. Nor am I a woman in her 30s, who might like to know how fast the biological clock that may eventually limit fertility is ticking.
I am tempted to repeat the test again, mainly out of a competitive desire to get better, but only if (as on this occasion, when Life Length waived the $500 fee) I can get it for free. Far more interesting, however, has been the glimpse of the future – when telomere testing, and popping pills to repair the tips of our chromosomes, may allow us to live both longer and healthier. I am persuaded, too, that the aim should be to make sure we live our years out in good health. So why all the rushing about? Time, perhaps, to take things more calmly.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
How to make perfect potato salad
I love a good potato salad with everything….alond with a sandwich,chicken,with the barbecue, or just simply as a snack. Everyone has their own recipe and so do the supermarkets…my mom’s sister always made her special potato salad with apples everytime we came for a visit…so what are your waiting for? Start boiling those potatoes!
We British love a picnic. The first ray of sunshine carpets parks, verges and even kerbs with al fresco diners, happily cramming in scotch eggs and pork pies like they’re going out of fashion – because, although in theory you can decant anything you like on to your tartan rug, our climate dictates that the sustenance in question should be relatively hearty.
Quiches, sticky sausages, Dundee cake; perhaps a few carrot batons or cherry tomatoes as a concession to health, but in general, the British picnic on foodstuffs that, along with a fiery glug of ginger beer or a warming glass of cider, offer some protection against a “fresh” breeze or the occasional spot of rain.
Potato salad, then has some claim to being the supreme example, the appending of the word “salad” giving it a summery, if not particularly healthy air, and the hearty combination of carbohydrate and mayonnaise suggesting valuable insulating properties. It also happens to go very well with other picnic staples, like cold salmon or ham sandwiches. Yotam Ottolenghi may do a mean grilled courgette and fennel with saffron crumbs, but as my granny would have said, it won’t put hairs on your chest.
Waxy v floury
The eternal question with any potato recipe, this is one of the few dishes in which the British embrace the waxy potato with as much enthusiasm as our continental neighbours. Nigel Slater, writing in Tender, suggests that they aren’t the only option however: “The other approach is to use a floury King Edward-style potato, boiled till its edges fray, then cut into crumbling slices … it provides a salad of hearty rusticity”. I see what he means, but I don’t like the way the King Edwards fall apart when I toss them with the dressing, creating a mayonnaisey, potatoey mush instead of anything that could kindly be described as a salad, rustic or otherwise. Waxy it is – particularly given the quality of the new potatoes at this time of year.
Peel appeal
Most recipes call for one to peel the potatoes, generally after cooking but Nigel again offers a rare voice of dissent. “I like the rusticity of an unskinned potato salad,” he admits, “but there is also something very elegant about a salad made from skinned new potatoes”. Having burned my fingers trying to peel potatoes straight from the pan once too often, I struggle to see the elegance, but more importantly, I think that potato skins add both texture and flavour to the dish – without them, it could almost be anything lurking beneath the mayonnaise. If you do leave them on, however, it’s important to make sure there’s enough skinned surface area to absorb the dressing, which means choosing slightly larger potatoes, and cutting them into halves or quarters.
Dressing up, dressing down
Some of you may well think that, if one is stupid enough to try and peel hot potatoes, minor burns are no more than just desserts – in which case I refer you to Constance Spry’s observation, in her nigh legendary Cookery Book, that it is of prime importance that “the dressing should be poured over the cooked potatoes while these are still hot in order that it may penetrate into the slices”. This is certainly true: most of the vinaigrette added to cold cooked potatoes runs off, and ends up in the bottom of the bowl.
What kind of dressing to use, however, is less clear. Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book suggests that it must be “well-flavoured”, suggesting white wine or vinaigrette. Constance Spry, the Riverford Farm Cook Book, and the Prawn Cocktail Years all plump for the latter, and I can see why – wine just isn’t acidic enough here: the bland, almost buttery flavour of a new potato needs something sharper. Riverford Farm uses a simple oil and vinegar mixture, but adding a little mustard, as Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham do, gives a nice little kick.
Mayonnaise
Some recipes, like that in the Prawn Cocktail Years, just stop there – allow the potatoes to cool in their dressing, garnish with a few herbs, and tuck in. (“Although it can be fine to use mayonnaise,” the authors admit, somewhat grudgingly, “its thickness smears rather than coats the potato”.) Most, however, add a second dressing, once the potatoes have cooled down. Jane Grigson suggests a simple mayonnaise, Riverford Farm use a combination of mayo, crème fraîche and Greek yoghurt, which I find a little too sour, and Constance Spry deploys what she calls a “coleslaw dressing”, which involves boiling together vinegar, mustard, salt, flour and sugar, beating in eggs and butter, and then finishing off with cream. The result reminds me, not entirely pleasurably, of supermarket coleslaw – sweet and vinegary and oddly cloying. A simple mayonnaise seems by far the best option. If it ain’t broke …
Some recipes skip the vinaigrette stage altogether, and head straight for the mayonnaise – both Sarah Raven and Signe Johansen allow their spuds to drain for 15 minutes, and then toss them in a thick dressing. The former uses mayonnaise, enlivened with garlic and mustard powder, the latter goes for an unholy marriage of sour cream and salad cream. Given the dish is billed, in Signe’s hitherto faultless Scandilicious book, as a “pepped-up version of a traditional Scandinavian dill, egg and potato salad”, I’m prepared to allow the salad cream as an ingredient whose charms have been lost in translation – because, even in such tiny quantities (1 tbsp to 200ml sour cream), it brings back hideous memories of wet, limp iceberg and other school dinner horrors. (The recipe also leaves me a bottle looking for a good home, if anyone’s interested?) In both cases however, I feel the lack of tangy vinaigrette – without it, the potatoes and dressing remain in two separate layers.
Additions: a fishy caper
Alliums are a popular addition to potato salads – as Jane Grigson notes, this is “not a ladylike dish: it should have a direct appeal, from the delicate earthiness that characterises good potatoes and the sweet fire of a good onion”. I find her raw Spanish onion too much of a good thing however (cuddling up for warmth loses some of its appeal when you have to keep apologising for your lunch choices), and the same goes for Sarah Raven’s thinly sliced red onion. Call me a wimp, but Signe’s spring onion and Simon and Lindsey’s chives suit my tastes far better, adding flavour without overpowering the other ingredients.
Constance Spry wisely observes that a good potato salad “should be garnished with some sharp ingredient such as capers, sliced gherkin or sliced pickled walnuts to relieve the somewhat cloying taste of potatoes”. Which you choose is largely up to you, but, never one to stint, I’ve thrown in both capers and gherkins, inspired by Signe’s recipe, and (and perhaps controversially), the anchovies suggested by Sarah Raven – they just go so beautifully with potato. A good dollop of wholegrain mustard, as in Signe’s dressing, adds both texture and flavour to the mayonnaise, but I’m leaving out the chopped hardboiled egg used in both the Riverford and Scandilicious recipes – with mayonnaise as well, I find the whole thing too rich.
You could just stick with chives, but I think another layer of herbs contributes a welcome freshness: Sarah Raven finishes her salad off with a cornucopia of dill, basil, thyme, coriander, parsley, fennel, chives and mint, but, as I don’t have a herb garden to raid, I’m confining myself to the pepperiness of parsley and a little cooling mint. (Interestingly The Prawn Cocktail Years recipe cooks the potatoes with a few sprigs of mint, but I’m unable to taste this in the finished dish, clever as it sounds). Best served at park temperature, with a hearty slab of ham, or a piece of poached fish, and a woolly blanket.
Perfect potato salad
Serves 4
600g waxy potatoes
½ tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
115g good mayonnaise
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
3 spring onions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp capers, chopped
2 anchovies, finely chopped
Small bunch of chives, finely chopped
Handful of parsley, finely chopped
Handful of mint, finely chopped
1. Boil the potatoes in well salted water for about 15 minutes until tender. Meanwhile, whisk together the mustard and vinegar with a pinch of salt, then whisk in the oils. Cut the cooked potatoes into halves, or quarters if large and toss with the dressing, then leave to cool.
2. Stir the remaining ingredients into the mayonnaise, keeping back a pinch of each of the herbs for garnish, then, when the potatoes are cool, drain off any remaining vinaigrette and toss them into the mayonnaise.
3. Garnish with herbs and serve.
Are you for mayo or vinaigrette when it comes to potato salad, or will anyone admit to a Scandinavian taste for salad cream? And what other dishes find their way into your picnic basket (OK, carrier bag) year after year – do any other salads travel quite as well in your experience?
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.