long life
Vitamin C and Life Expectancy:How Long Human May Live?
Can Vitamin C affect Life Length?
Professor Linus Pauling has believed that people could live longer by taking Vitamin C. There is not any study to confirm this claim. However, there are many scientific findings may support this idea.
How long cells could live?
Each cell has a biological clock determining its life length. The duration of a cell’s life, is programmed on its genome as well. Human genome is arranged in 46 segments called chromosomes. The life length information is located in the end parts of the chromosomes. These parts are called Telomeres. Telomeres are made of repetitive sequences of DNA and have a special structure.
Every time that a cell proliferates, a small part of its telomeres are missing. In the other words, cell loses a part of its telomeres during proliferation and so, the daughter cells have shorter telomeres than parent cell.
This procedure is continuing until telomeres receive a length that could not be shorten more. When a cell receives this stage, it could not proliferate more and is called that it is entered in Cell Senescence stage. In senescence stage, the cell is alive but cannot proliferate. It continues living for a time and then dies.
Studies have shown that cells with longer telomeres could live longer, because it takes more time to begin senescence stage.
People with longer telomeres have shown a longer life than people with shorter telomeres. In some syndromes, like Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), it is shown that the rate of telomeres shortening is too much more than normal people and so they show aging symptoms when they are teenagers!
Is it possible to have longer life by protecting telomeres from shortening?
Theoretically, and of course based on the scientific findings, it is possible to increase life expectation by protecting telomeres from shortening. Some scientists believe human can live for hundreds of years!
How to protect telomeres from shortening?
Decrease your stress! Have a healthy life style, eat and drink safe and healthy foods and drinks, have physical activities, don’t smoke.
Healthy life style could decrease telomeres shortening rate.
People without healthy life style may lose telomeres faster and experience aging and lower life expectancy as well.
What is fastening telomeres shortening?
There are some factors may fasten telomeres shortening: Smoking, Stress, and free radicals.
Telomeres, Free radicals, and Antioxidants:
Telomeres are free radical scavengers. It means that telomeres are attracting free radicals to protect other parts of chromosome from free radicals invasion. This mechanism could help protecting vital genes from mutations. But, attachment of free radicals to telomeres makes some defects on telomeres structure and function. And so, telomeres shortening process may be fasten, which means the cell will enter in the senescence stage sooner.
Antioxidants could protect telomeres in front of the free radicals invasion and so, telomeres could be protected.
So, antioxidants may help people to have longer life and it could be concluded that Pauling was right! Because Vitamin C is a potent antioxidant and could help cells to protect their telomeres.
Did you know:
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There are some tissues that can inhibit their telomeres shortening. Stem cells, Skin cells, some intestinal cells, bone marrow, and sex cells are some examples. These cells are using different mechanisms for prevention of telomeres shortening.
Did you know:
Cancer cells have different mechanisms for inhibition of telomeres shortening. Even they may don’t care about telomeres shortening and continue proliferation. And so, one of the important cancer therapy protocols is inhibition of telomeres lengthening in cancer cells.
Did you know:
It is shown that the length of telomeres in newborns is longer than teenagers and teenagers have longer telomeres than older people!
