A article in Science Daily describes a study of birds that revealed those who have offspring later in life and have fewer offspring live longer.
Telomeres are the protective caps at the end of chromosomes, these caps influence how long an individual will live. As the cells in your body divide your telomeres get shorter. Factors like stress and the length of the telomeres of that individuals sires. However, each individuals starting telomere length varies.
Researchers studied barnacle geese to show the impact of telomere length on life span. These geese have longer life then most bird speices and are more efficient at maintaining the length of their telomeres. This might be because in individual with a longer life will take greater care to maintain bodily functions then those who only have a goal of reproduction. In the animal world there is a clear connection between reproduction and ageing from elephants to mice. This study with geese observed better preserved telomeres in males then in females.
Both of the articles were very interesting. Without telomeres, our cells would lose essential information at the end of our chromosomes. When telomeres become too short, our cells will die. The article involving the geese was intriguing because the males preserved their telomeres better than female geese. I would initially think it would be the other way around due to females generally having a longer lifespan in most species.
ReplyDeleteI had blogged an article on telomere length and it's relation to fighting an infection such as a cold. The people with shorter telomere length in their cells took longer to fight off the cold. These above articles both have a correlation with the article I discusses and I find it interesting that telomere length has such great importance to humans.
ReplyDeleteI did not know telomeres had such an impact on lifespan. I am not sure if this article is saying kids bring on stress and stress causes shortening of telomeres and having babies later means less stress for a longer period of time.
ReplyDeleteI have also blogged about an article on telomere length and life expectancy. The longer the telomeres the longer life for the patient. Short telomeres are also connected to old age diseases like heart disease, dementia or cancer. It is interesting that your study showed that birds that had offspring later in life and have fewer offspring live longer, when the older people get the shorter the telomere gets.
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