From what I can tell as a complete layman, the title is quite sensationalist: the only process being reversed is telomere lengthening, which has a tenuous relationship with aging at best.
There have been a few interviews with Bret Weinstein on this topic as it pertains to lab mice. [1] [2] I am curious if this is in any way related and would there be similar concerns around how humans deal with senescent cells and cancer if Telomere are artificially lengthened. Out of curiosity, does anyone in this field have more information to add to Bret's interview that can explain technically how the mice ended up with longer Telomere's and if it was on purpose?<p>[1] - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKTV2R6TT0Y" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKTV2R6TT0Y</a><p>[2] - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve4q-1D_Ajo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve4q-1D_Ajo</a>
I was unable to find the paper the article claims was published about this, which is a shame because I'd love to learn more about what the researchers actually said. The mechanism described in the Yahoo article is implausible to say the least (TANSTAFFL principle: if you could reverse aging by simply lengthening telomeres, there would have been significant evolutionary pressure for increased expression of telomerase, so unless it came with sufficiently bad downsides, you would expect it to have already reached fixation in the population). Still, I would be interested to see what the researchers themselves actually say.<p>I did find a related article, titled "Telomere elongation followed by telomere length reduction, in leukocytesfrom divers exposed to intense oxidative stress – Implications for tissueand organismal aging" [1]. I would expect the actual findings here were similar to that article.<p>[1] <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.208.4475&rep=rep1&type=pdf" rel="nofollow">http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.208...</a>
- "The pressurised chamber allows more oxygen to be dissolved into the tissues and mimics a state of "hypoxia", or oxygen shortage, which is known to have regenerating effects." This seems counter intuitive, anyone know the mechanism here?<p>- Did this article fail to link the paper, or am I failing to see the link? Poor reporting if the former.<p>- There is a gap in reporting here...anyone know exactly how telemeres actually lengthen from this?<p>- Unrelated: Is anyone in the industry actually interested by Brett Weinstein's supposed involvement in lab mice telemere issue discovery, or is he seen as an irrelevant pest within these circles?
Any time telomeres show up in relation to aging I question it's relevance. I've never seen any causal connection, only correlation. Is there any solid evidence that short telomeres cause aging or that lengthening them actually does anything?