Cynthia Kenyon Quotes

In humans, the thing is that as we mature, our telomeres slowly wear down. So the question has always been: 'Did that matter?' Well, more and more, it seems like it matters.

Telomeres are the ends of our chromosomes that control how long we live. As telomeres become shorter, then cells age and die more quickly. In simple terms, as your telomeres get shorter, your life gets shorter.

We know that people who are born with shorter telomeres than normal also have a shorter lifespan. We know that shorter telomeres can cause a shorter lifespan.

What is it that keeps you so interested in the telomere? It's so intricate and complicated, and you want to know how it works.

Checking your telomere length is a bit like weighing yourself: you get this single number which depends on a lot of factors. Telomere length gives a sense of your underlying health.

Aging is not one process. It's many different things going on that cause us to age. I have a program that at least slows down each of these different processes.

The conservative statement is that telomere length is a biomarker, but it's probably not passive. There are some very intimate relationships between things such as molecular markers for inflammation and telomere health.

If a test showed you had telomere shortening, it would be a red flag suggesting you should take a look at possible risk factors.

A short telomere represents a persistent and non-repairable damage to the cells, which is able to prevent their division or regeneration.

Telomerase Activation is the single most promising approach to reversing the effects of aging.

You can open up a centenarian's brain, and you'll see some areas that look like that of a 50-year-old or of a 110-year-old. You can have variation in the basic process of aging, called senescence, in different parts of the same body.

Aging is basically the build-up of error: error at the genetic level, error at the cellular level. Cells normally repair themselves; that's why you heal when you get a cut. But even the mechanism of repair eventually falls apart.

In my lab, we're finding that psychological stress actually ages cells, which can be seen when you measure the wearing down of the tips of the chromosomes, those telomeres.

In 1978, Elizabeth Blackburn, working with Joe Gall, identified the DNA sequence of telomeres. Every time a cell divides, it gets shorter. But telomeres usually don't. So there must be something happening to the telomeres to keep their length in equilibrium.

Chronic emotional stress shortens your telomeres.

Well, we can study aging in people, but of course those studies take decades. So what we try to do is we use simpler organisms to try and understand the basic mechanisms and so in my laboratory, for example, we use things like simple baker's yeast that we use to make bread.

It will be useful for you to know your biological age and maybe to change your lifestyle habits if you find you have short telomeres.

If you asked me what caused aging, I would say free radicals and molecules, which spontaneously shift and form and cause damage in all our cells and genes. The body usually repairs and replaces the damage in these genes. But as you get older, the aging clock turns down those defenses.

We see that mice that undergo caloric restriction show a lower telomere shortening rate than those fed with a normal diet. These mice therefore have longer telomeres as adults, as well as lower rates of chromosome anomalies.

Biological age is the key component of the aging process.

Do you realize that there is nothing in our genes that tells us when to die? There are genetic codes that tell us how to grow, how to breathe, and how to sleep, but NOTHING that tells us to die. So why do we? Because we literally rust and decay our bodies from the inside out with poor food and lifestyle choices.

Aging is mostly the failure to repair.

The individual organs follow the same pattern as the whole organism, i.e. they have their period of growth, of stationary, maximum activity and then of aging decline.

We and other groups are seeing clear statistical links between telomere shortness and risk for a variety of diseases that are becoming very common, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers.

In the early '90s, we discovered mutations that could double the normal life span of worms.