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Published online 28 January 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.532
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Live slow die young
Sedentary lifestyles could make you old before your time.
Active people could be up to 10 years 'younger' than couch potatoes, at least according to one measure of biological age.
Tim Spector, director of the Twin Research Unit at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, looked at the levels of physical activity of 2,401 twins and assessed the length of their telomeres - the 'caps' on the ends of their chromosomes that help to protect the DNA from wearing down during the replication process that replenishes cells.
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Yes - KEEP MOVING! I've also taken to standing when surfing the web or writing. Gets the blood flowing anyway. Now I know that I'll also live longer. We linked up to your article in our Hypertext Bazaar - 01.29.08. All the best! tjc www.memeticians.com
Scientific analysis assumes responsibility to exemine all possible hypothesis. It is important to keep in account the hypothesis that initial bilogical event is telomere shrinkage and only the next event is loss in physical activity. Examination of cause-effect links would forward our knowledge of aging.
Recent years have seen that the 'ageing' field is more facinating to work. since in this work, they have analysed the twins, it should be more reliable data at the molecular level to look at telomere length and telomerase activity. nowadays lot of connections are being made with regard to ageing, like balance in tumor supressing activity and cancer also. we should try giving a coherent picture of all the available hypothesis of ageing and more experiments in animal models should be carried out to prove a point.
The findings certainly are very interesting. If telomere shortening does not directly lead to ageing, it may predispose individuals to ageing or ageing associated diseases. Exercise may also stimulate antioxidation defense system and immune system against oxidative damage.