I was reading in my newspaper this morning that scientists have nearly discovered a cure to accelerated age disorder. Quick background-
Accelerated Age Disorder is when the cells in your body destroy themselves too soon and new ones are formed. In a normal human the cell will last a long time before it kills itself for a new one to take place. They have cured this by supplementing the subjects chromosomes with teno-somethingorother (i can't remember what it was exactly) so that the protecting part of the chromosomes stay on the chromosomes (which stops the chorosome from dieing). What i wondered was- if you could stop your cells and chromosomes from replacing thereselves with new cells couldn't you stop yourself from aging altogther? If this is possible would simply not aging alow you to live forever or do your organs etc only have a certain shelf life?

Chunkmiester

I think the point of the cells replacing themselves is to keep healthy and strong,

CTR

If cells never died they would accumulate many mutations leading to cancer and other problems.

But would you live LONGER with cancer or just the same?

Every time your cells split/reproduce, they lose a small yet criticall piece, the process takes a long time to kill you but it happens. What we need to do is simply stop them from losing that piece when they split, this way you will never grow beyond your prime and all you need to do is continue healthy habits. You can still die, but as long as you dont get sick, get poisend, etc. you will live.

That 'peice' is called telomeres. Telomeres act like that little plastic bit on the ends of shoelaces, they keep the DNA from unraveling. How much they contribute to the ageing process is still unknown.

A good part of the aging process has to do with general wear and tear. The body can not regenerate it's form exactly for an indefinate period of time. If you cut off the end of a finger it would eventualy heal over, but wouldn't regrow. The same principal applies on a celular level. Things wear out, and aren't regenerated exactly the same.

Lokisdaki- i don't see how that could happen. By not allowing the cells to change or replace themselves how could they develop faults? I understand that they would get older and less functional (it seems a resonable concept) but i can't see how they could mutate.

Thanks Prometheus, telomeres sounds right, but from what i was reading it seems that by preventing the telomeres from detaching the rest of the chromosome wouldn't die (thus not allowing a new, and slightly different (aged?) to spawn).
But (regarding your second paragraph) i can't see your point, other than to keep yourself neutral. You say that if you cut off your finger then it will heal over and not regrow. But what i am saying is that if you could do something to your dna that prevented your body from changing at all, to stop them regenerating and to keep the same cells, then you wouldn't age- regardless of outside influence.

Chunkmiester

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Originally posted by lokisdaki:
If cells never died they would accumulate many mutations leading to cancer and other problems.

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Not true. The DNA from each daughter cell comes from the parent cell, so any changes are accumulated anyway.

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Originally posted by Prometheus:
That 'peice' is called telomeres. Telomeres act like that little plastic bit on the ends of shoelaces, they keep the DNA from unraveling. How much they contribute to the ageing process is still unknown.

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We do know that when the telomere is gone, the cell stops dividing. An enzyme called telomerase stops the telomeres from shortening, and may be the key to much greater life span. The last I heard, cells injected with telomerase did not become malignant. Gene therapy that adds telomerase to our DNA could work.

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Originally posted by Prometheus:
A good part of the aging process has to do with general wear and tear. The body can not regenerate it's form exactly for an indefinate period of time. If you cut off the end of a finger it would eventualy heal over, but wouldn't regrow. The same principal applies on a celular level. Things wear out, and aren't regenerated exactly the same.

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The wear and tear is do to the decreasing longevity of the cells. The loss of a finger is not general wear and tear; that's massive damage (relative to cells), though theoretically the body should be able to regrow anything with the proper stimulation. It's all there.

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Originally posted by Chunkmiester:
But what i am saying is that if you could do something to your dna that prevented your body from changing at all, to stop them regenerating and to keep the same cells, then you wouldn't age- regardless of outside influence.

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That's impossible. As long as you're eating, your cells with divide. The problem is that after a while, they stop.

I just used the finger thing as an analogy for how things can change, and not repair perfectly.

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Originally posted by Prometheus:
I just used the finger thing as an analogy for how things can change, and not repair perfectly.

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Yes but with the proper direction it could. None of this stuff is yet posible, all hypothetical. And by the way, thanks for Telomeres i read it a while ago, couldnt remember the name.

It is necessary for cells to die. For instance, skin cells when exposed to UV light receive dimers, adjacent bases which bond to eachother rendering that part of DNA useless. Sometimes the DNA of certain cells receive too much damage and cannot be fixed which usually will kill the cell. But if the cell does not die and the DNA is replicated it can cause mutations in the DNA, incorrect coding of the bases. These mutations lead to altered cell function and can lead to carcinogenesis, cancer. That is why people who are exposed to excessive sunlight for long periods of time, years, get cancer. Mutations build up eventually leading to cancer.
So, yes if a cell never died its DNA would be rendered useless through mutations and cell function would cease, and your life. Cells aren't equipped to live forever, yet.

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Originally posted by lokisdaki:
It is necessary for cells to die. For instance, skin cells when exposed to UV light receive dimers, adjacent bases which bond to eachother rendering that part of DNA useless. Sometimes the DNA of certain cells receive too much damage and cannot be fixed which usually will kill the cell. But if the cell does not die and the DNA is replicated it can cause mutations in the DNA, incorrect coding of the bases. These mutations lead to altered cell function and can lead to carcinogenesis, cancer. That is why people who are exposed to excessive sunlight for long periods of time, years, get cancer. Mutations build up eventually leading to cancer.
So, yes if a cell never died its DNA would be rendered useless through mutations and cell function would cease, and your life. Cells aren't equipped to live forever, yet.

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I didn't say that if a cell never died it would be fine, I said that the problems you described with immortal cells and accumulated genetic damage occur anyway, during cellular reproduction, so it's not that different.

Also, even if somehow we made it so that a cell would never divide or die naturally, it would still die from the die of damage you describe.

apoptosis it's the shit!

or maybe we could not torture ouselves with extended life and just die.

SenorJesucristo

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Originally posted by biot:
apoptosis it's the shit!

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apotheosis

yes, i know what apoptosis is, but apotheosis is the more correct word.

[This message has been edited by SenorJesucristo (edited 11-15-2002).]

well im glad you're more correct.

Heh, with all those cells you would become rolly polly. And, if you stop the cells, they will become to used and be weak and become impossible to use. So alter that chemical to a slowing agent and we would live really long.

in the real world we call accellerated growth "progeria"

and the way that you can actually help people is by infecting people with HIV...

Thanks to that they get another 5 years

Brain cells only have the capacity to regenerate during infancy, so eventually your brain will wear out.

There was an Oriental Fellow named Alex Chui. He claimed that he could make you immortal by wearing this magnetic rings. It is obviously a scam. He knows that some, in fact most Americans are stupid enough to fall for it. Anyway, even if they did make someone to have the ability to be immortal making it would cause all sorts of problems. Besides, I would not want to live forever.

ive seen those! i wouldnt get them for the immortality thing of course but because they look kool.

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Originally posted by Dark_Magneto:
Brain cells only have the capacity to regenerate during infancy, so eventually your brain will wear out.

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Not true, there is some slighe regenerative ability, unfortunatly it is not enough to repair even minor damage. However, neural stem cells can be found in fully developed human brains.

If you could have a fully regenerateable brain, would it replicate the information that was on the cells or would you just be an entirely new person if you grew an entirely new brain and were kept alive with machines until it was developed enough?

I think it would be an entirely different "person", so to speak.