photo: fbi.gov
A recent study of 3,500 patients afflicted with heart disease has garnered new insight on the ability to predict life expectancy from the study of DNA strands.
The research was done by the Intermountain Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.
The results of the study were presented just this weekend on the occasion of the American Medical Cardiology annual session in San Francisco.
The study demonstrated how the length of the DNA strand in the individuals subject of the study is directly correlated with their life expectancy.
In particular, it is the length of DNA at the end of the chromosomes, which are called telomeres, that were the indicators of the person's ability to live longer or not in those subjects that suffered from heart disease.
The reason for this is that telomeres prevent chromosomes from being damaged. As people age, the length of telomeres becomes shorter and shorter, until the cell is all but disabled from dividing. Shorter telomeres are associated with both heart disease and cancer, and make individuals more susceptible to oxidation damage such as smoke, pollution or anything that speeds the aging process. In fact the point when the telomeres become too short is when the patient becomes suddenly much more vulnerable to certain diseases.
Longer telomeres obviously take longer to reach the stage where their length is no longer viable for crhomosome replication. Therefore, it is a good indicator of life expectancy.
Scientists also see telomere length study as a good indicator to measure health care treatment in the future.
This study, is one of 17 conducted by the same institute.
Source: Science daily 3.11.13
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