It is very likely that many people alive today will reach 120 years of age . Maybe even yourself. Life expectancy increases by 2 years for every decade , and there are already more than 500 thousand people over 100 years of age worldwide. Therefore, how long can we stretch the limits of human life? Will we become immortal?
Although it seems like a science fiction plot, there is a molecule with the ability to extend life indefinitely, and you don’t need to go far to find it. It is within your own body, yes, at the microscopic level. Telomerase is an enzyme whose sole function is to give cells additional life. And how do you get it? Lengthening the ends of chromosomes , called telomeres .
The genetic information is stored in the chromosomes, that is, the instructions that order how everything works in your body: the color of your hair, the shape of your nose … and, also, the diseases that you are most at risk of suffering from. Since its discovery in 1990, short telomeres have been shown to be associated with premature aging and higher incidence and mortality from cancer . In addition, it is related to a weakened immune system, type 2 diabetes, high levels of cholesterol in the blood , hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, low bone density , dementia and even infertility.
In scientific jargon, telomeres are to chromosomes “like the plastic at the end of shoelaces .” Each time cells divide , telomeres get shorter and shorter, until they reach a critical limit, known as the Hayflick limit . Thereafter, telomeres are so short that chromosomes can become unstable, and there is a greater chance of DNA damage: genetic errors and mutations. Which results in disease and aging.
Therefore, if there is an enzyme capable of lengthening telomeres , why do we suffer from diseases and die? In reality, telomerase activity is “turned off” at birth. So from then on, we are hopelessly doomed to grow old and ultimately to die . Sooner or later
Telomerase, key in tumor progression
An enzyme capable of giving cells additional life was a very promising finding in the development of anti-aging and even anti-cancer therapies. It is precisely to this dreaded disease that we owe such a discovery: in 2003, the American Elizabeth Blackburn, together with her team, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for demonstrating how tumor cells were capable of activating the action of cancer. telomerase to become immortal.
In recent years, studies of telomerase have shed a lot of light on how aging works and its relationship to cancer . In Spain, the team of Dr. María A. Blasco, director of the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), managed to extend the life of mice treated with telomerase by up to 40% in 2008.
So far, the oldest human has been French Jean Calmet , who died at 122 years of age. But this appears to be just the beginning of a generation of much longer-lived humans.
Will we come to dominate telomerase to extend the life of our cells indefinitely? For the moment, this hypothesis still belongs to science fiction. What is science is that the future of medicine, increasingly personalized, is aimed at delaying and preventing all diseases , which, of course, implies living longer. At the moment, the only thing that is in our power is to avoid the damages that we know that significantly shorten telomeres: poor diet, stress, sedentary lifestyle, alcohol or tobacco … Up to 80% of the factors that intervene in aging they are, like these, modifiable.
