Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine studied a group of especially long-lived Ashkenazi Jews (average age of 97) and found “a clear link between living to 100 and inheriting a hyperactive version of an enzyme that rebuilds telomeres — the tip ends of chromosomes.”
Telomeres are relatively short sections of specialized DNA that sit at the ends of all chromosomes. One of the Nobel Prize winners, Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D., of the University of California at San Francisco, has compared telomeres to the plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces that prevent the laces from unraveling.
Each time a cell divides, its telomeres erode slightly and become progressively shorter with each cell division. Eventually, telomeres become so short that their host cells stop dividing and lapse into a condition called cell senescence. As a result, vital tissues and important organs begin to fail and the classical signs of aging ensue.
Eventually, say researchers, they may be able to develop drugs that prolong the length of the telomeres more effectively, thus allowing those who weren’t fortunate enough to inherit mutant telomere-preserving genes to benefit a long, healthy life.
(H/T Instapundit)