Guten TTAGGG telomerase!

Interesting article appeared here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/16/AR2008091601497.html

Quote

Telomerase repairs and lengthens telomeres, which are DNA-protein complexes at the end of chromosomes that directly affect how quickly cells age. As telomeres become shorter and their structural integrity weakens, cells age and die more quickly, according to background information in a University of California, Irvine, new release. Shortening of telomeres is emerging as a marker of disease risk and premature death in many types of cancer, including prostate, lung, breast and colorectal cancers.

In this study, Dr. Dean Ornish, a professor of medicine at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif., and his colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, asked 30 men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer to make significant lifestyle changes.

The changes included eating a diet with only 10 percent of calories from fat, low in refined sugars, and rich in whole foods, fruit and vegetables. They supplemented their diet with vitamins and fish oil and did moderate aerobic exercise, stress management, relaxation techniques, and breathing exercises.

The men's telomerase levels were measured at the start of the study and again at three months. At that time, the researchers found a 29 percent increase in telomerase levels and a decrease in "bad" (LDL) cholesterol.

(more general stuff on telomerase in this and that article)

I have mixed feelings reading that Lancet paper write-up. On one hand telomerase can be indeed called the enzyme of immortality, unfortunately the only cells that produce sufficiently active telomerase are germ line cells (sperm cells and ova) and cancerous cells! Without reading the full text I have no way of telling what exactly did Dr. Ornish et al find. Did they find 29% more telomerase in serum, from prostate cancer or did it come from macrophages and lymphocyte cells where it is also supposed to be present but probably inactive? Was the telomerase active or inactive?