‘TELOMERES PAT,’ SAID MICHEL MOREL, ‘did you know there are more than 20,000 scientific articles published about telomeres?’
‘Is that good or bad?’
Morel laughed
‘How do these telomeres work?’
‘Well they shorten each time a cell copies itself, though the DNA stays intact. In the end, telomeres get too short to do their work, causing cells to age and stop functioning normally. So you see telomeres act like a biological clock in every cell, counting down the time until it reaches that fateful moment predetermined by nature.’
Pat nodded. His mind wandered, he saw the terrifying image of his boyhood idol, Aidan McGrath, a Christian Brother, a hurling champion, who now walked with a Zimmer frame, old, sick, a helpless aged man, a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, incontinent with spittle drooling from the side of his trembling lips, and now stalked by the virus.
It was a reminder his own clock was ticking, how long would it be before he descended into decrepitude, like Dorian Gray in his portrait, ‘withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage’, as in the story told by Pat’s Irish compatriot, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, better know as Oscar Wilde, not that Pat was given to hedonism and corruption like Wilde’s protagonist.
‘Have you ever heard of the Hayflick limit?’
‘No,’ said Pat after a moment, snapping out of his trance.
‘The Hayflick phenomenon, is the number of times our cells divide before cell division stops. Leonard Hayflick, was an American anatomist, he demonstrated that a normal human fetal cell population will divide between 40 and 60 times in cell culture before entering a senescence phase.’
Morel explained how each time a cell undergoes mitosis, that is to say when it splits, the telomeres at the end of each chromosome shorten and once they've shortened to a critical length, cell division ceases.
Hayflick’s discovery pointed to aging at the cellular level which corresponded with the overall physical aging of an organism which goes with the shortening of telomeres on each division, known as cellular senescence.
‘Can we stay young forever, or get back our youth?’ asked Pat
‘Maybe,’ said Morel, politely humouring Pat, ‘recently an important step in the telomerase enzyme catalytic cycle discovered that this cycle determines the ability of the human telomerase enzyme to synthesize DNA repeats onto chromosome ends, which effectively creates cell immortality.’
Pat whistled softly, that was beyond him, he was a banker, not a scientist.
‘Basically cells are mortal, that means they die, they cannot renew themselves forever. You see as Hayflick showed, human cells have a limited reproductive lifespan, with older cells reaching this limit sooner than younger cells. The Hayflick limit of cell lifespan is directly related to the number of unique DNA repeats found at the ends of the genetic material-bearing chromosomes. These DNA repeats are part of the protective capping structures called telomeres, which protect the ends of chromosomes from unwanted and unwarranted DNA rearrangements that would deregulate the genome.’
That’s too complicated for me,’ said Pat. ‘But what about all those products they advertise to make you younger?’
Morel suppressed a laugh. ‘We all want the secret to healthy, glowing, youthful skin don’t we?’
Pat shrugged.
‘It’s what’s inside us that counts. Our diet and hydration play a vital role in the health of our skin. So, if you’re looking to retain your youthful looks for even longer Pat, then a plant-based diet is recommended.
‘How do we age?’ asked Pat ignoring the advice.
‘As I told you, if you want a scientific answer it’s in the death of our cells, which happens everyday, even as we talk. During our lives cells reproduce, but for a limited number of times.’
It was a complex process and Michel Morel summerised, ‘Telomeres are markers of health and longevity. The better your telomeres, the younger you are. The more damage to the telomeres, the more you age.’
Pat seemed to have lost interest, health foods and all that shit did nothing.
‘So if you want to live better and healthier,’ Michel droned on, not realising he had lost Pat, ‘whilst we are waiting for a cure to aging, the solution is to lead a clean life, protect our telomeres, avoid the negative factors that shorten these telomeres.
‘A plant-based diet doesn’t just protect our telomeres from shortening but can actually elongate them.
‘Avoid eating meat Pat, eat nuts, seeds, pulses, quinoa which are all good sources of plant proteins. Avoid animal-based and proceeded food as well as from a sedentary lifestyle.’
‘Fuck nuts,’ Pat thought, he practiced sport and had a Chinese diet with little red meat, it hadn’t stopped him catching the virus, and nuts wouldn’t prevent him from dying at three score and ten years or thereabouts.’