And they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam: and the bark clave the waves
The DNA that makes up your genes is entwined in 46 chromosomes, each of which ends with a telomere, a stretch of DNA that protects the chromosome like the plastic tip on a shoelace. Telomeres are quite long at birth and shorten a bit every time a cell divides; ultimately, after scores of divisions, very little telomere remains and the cell becomes inactive or dies. And because elderly people generally have shorter telomeres than younger people, scientists believe that telomere length may be a marker for longevity as well as cellular health.
Now researchers are discovering that experiences can affect telomeres—intriguing new evidence for nurture’s impact on nature. […] “We found that children who experience multiple forms of violence had the fastest erosion of their telomeres, compared with children who experienced just one type of violence or did not experience violence at all,” says Idan Shalev, the study’s lead author.
Another study, conducted at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, hints at possible physical effects of chronic stress. Among a sample of 5,243 nurses nationwide, those who suffered from phobias had significantly shorter telomeres than those who didn’t. […]
While researchers are adding to the list of things that can shorten telomeres (smoking, for instance, and infectious diseases), they’ve also zeroed in on activities that seem to slow down telomere degradation. In a German study, people in their 40s and 50s had telomeres about 40 percent shorter than people in their 20s if they were sedentary, but only 10 percent shorter if they were dedicated runners.
photo { Bill Brandt, Nude, London, April, 1954 }
