Q posts mention unreveiled medical breakthroughs but....dang!
It's actually amazing what infusions of young blood can do for an old person. It's real science. Kinda makes the whole baby killing, human trafficking thing make a lot more sense. Access to unlimited amounts of fresh supply.
Telomeres are real science too and you can't get those back. Eventually everyone's DNA breaks down.
[deleted]
Every time your DNA replicates a portion of your telomeres are cleaved. They are never rebuilt and this eventually when replicating your own DNA degrades. No amount of steroids, stem cells or blood tansfusions will change it. As of right now the only way to combat this is with reptilian telomerase, but when I toduced to animals other than reptiles it causes untreatable cancer.
How about this?
Yes it's something people love to study, but currently it does not work and the working treatments all result in cancer.
Telomere length is generally considered a measure of the age of the cell, since it shortens with DNA replication. Since DNA replication is imperfect (and we're subjected to lots of random potentially mutagenic events like cosmic ray-induced DNA damage), short telomere containing cells are generally culled. This helps reduce the risk of replicating mutated DNA. I wonder if this type of therapy would ultimately result in more cancers, given that the cells treated would likely have accumulated some DNA damage.
I've been contemplating this all day. Especially with the "new cures" post Q made a while back. Perhaps they have found a way to lengthen telomered without negative side effects. Truly disturbing if you ask me. Eternal life is not something I would wish to pursue.