My article reinforces what Dr. Bronikowski started talking to us about last week. Researchers found an altered gene that had effectively doubled the life span of flies. However, not only did it double their life span the flies stayed middle age and active for most of their life. A single mutation prevented individual fly cells from using too many calories which caused an increased life span and is what Dr. Bronikowski studied and talked about as well. Aging occurs on the cellular level and each cell has its own built in clock that says how many times it is able to divide. Researchers also know this 'clock' is predetermined for each cell. Aging can be linked to degradation of the telomeres in our DNA and as a cell is continually dividing the strands get shorter and shorter. Cancer cells are the only cells that have been able to overcome this internal cellular clock. I found this article very interesting as it is helping us understand more about aging and putting us one step closer to figuring out the why question of aging.
Wow, that is an interesting article. In particular, the fact that the flies were able to live in "middle age" longer and therefore able to remain more active. I don't think I'd want to live longer if it meant that I was spending a majority of my life at a phase of declined functioning/deterioration.
ReplyDeleteAlso, reminded me of what Dr. Bronikowski mentioned about caloric restriction....not sure I want to spend my life hungry (haha).
Neat article and thanks for relating it to class!