Telomere regeneration

[ULTRA]

In this weeks New Scientist, it is reported that the telomeres in Hamsters got longer when sleeping, regenerating somewhat. These are like end-caps on our DNA and these get shorter as we age.
We know that people who do not have a natural or sufficient sleep tend to be unhealthier, more stressed and consequently live shorter lives. Now we know your telomeres might not be regenerating sufficiently.
What this all suggests is that a good night's sleep can improve your longevity providing our telomeres also regenerate during sleep periods.
So next time you oversleep, just remember it's potentially doing a lot of good for your health, wellbeing and possibly your longevity too.

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Is this the article in question?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20920-zoologger-dozy-hamsters-reverse-the-ageing-process.html

It’s very interesting but has no scientific detail so we should be careful about drawing any long bows when extrapolating to other species. (Like your last sentence! ) If I have time I’ll try to chase up a more scientific analysis of this phenomenon (but I almost certainly won’t have time).

At any rate, this phenomenon appears to be linked to the torpor state (semi-hibernation) which humans do not have. Even if we did, the last sentence is salient....

For humans fretting about their mortality, though, it might not be very appealing. Who wants to live forever if you have to spend half your time unconscious, and very cold?

 

[chimpkin]

“
For humans fretting about their mortality, though, it might not be very appealing. Who wants to live forever if you have to spend half your time unconscious, and very cold?
”

Sounds like a fun Friday night...wait, what?

I'm given to understand that cancer cells have fabulous long telomeres, this is why the frigging things won't shut off, and expand everywhere, eventually killing the poor creature the wildly populating cells are in...

 

[Walter L. Wagner]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere

(to give the reader some insight to Telomeres)

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

I'm given to understand that cancer cells have fabulous long telomeres....

One of the features of cancer cells is that they have upregulated telomerase activity. Telomerase maintains telomere length through cell divisions. This hibernating hamster story is the first time I’ve ever heard of telomere lengths being increased. That’s why I want to chase up some scientific detail.

 

[Pete]

Turbill C, Smith S, Deimel C, Ruf T
Daily torpor is associated with telomere length change over winter in Djungarian hamsters
Biology Letters, 2011 Sep 14, doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.0758

From the abstract:

We tested the hypothesis that torpor use slows ageing by measuring changes in the relative telomere length (RTL) of Djungarian hamsters...​

From the results section:

Initial RTL did not differ between the groups (RTL on day 0: 1.21 ± 0.14; t = 0.34, p = 0.73). Over 180 days on a short-day photoperiod, the change in RTL differed significantly between the cold and warm groups (t = 3.17, p = 0.005). Eleven out of 12 hamsters kept in the cold experienced an increase in their RTL (average change in RTL: 0.25 ± 0.19), whereas RTL decreased or increased approximately equally among hamsters in the warm group (average change: 0.03 ± 0.14).​

And the discussion:

We found that hamsters frequently using daily torpor bouts, particularly at low body temperatures, experienced an increase in their RTL over the 180 day period of a short photoperiod. This is not unrealistic because of the activity of telomerase in somatic tissues of small mammals.​

There is no supporting citation for that last sentence.

Question - what is Relative Telomere Length?

 

[Michael]

There's been a couple interesting studies on telomere formation recently.

I found this articleTelomerase reverses ageing process very interesting.