"What gives germ cells such long telos?"
I'm supposing that telomerase is expressed in germ cells. But as I understand it, germ cells have more than long telomeres going for them.
In 1999, there was a report that 13 cows had been cloned from skin cells from a very old cow. Here were very old skin cells being completely, totally rejuvenated by fusing them with egg cells to produce brand spanking new cow embryos that grew up to become normal cows. This experiment underscored the miraculous ability of old... even very old... parents to create offspring that are as young as it's possible to get. Somehow, it's possible for old cells to become completely 100% rejuvenated. Somehow, all the damage that living has inflicted upon the old progenitor cells magically and totally disappears.
By (actually before) 1999, biologists found a way to carry out this rejuvenation process in, figuratively speaking, a Petri dish rather than inside a female animal.
By now, in 2017, somatic cells can be transformed into pluripotent stem cells, and potentially, into embryonic stem cells using the four Yamanaka factors. The problem with harnessing this for human rejuvenation has been that the Yamanaka factors take the cell from its differentiated state all the way back to a pluripotent stem cell. It's an express train with no local stops. What we want is something that will clean up as much damage as we can without dedifferentiating the cells in our bodies. In December, 2016, Salk scientists reported doing just that in mice with progeria, extending their foreshortened lifespans by 30%. They did this with short spurts of exposure to the Yamanaka factors. They also tried this with normal mice. Some improvements are noted, but nothing is said about extending the lifespans of normal mice, so apparently, their life spans weren't increased.
Getting back to the question of prctical telomere extension, I just received my recommended month's supply of endoluten, the orally available form of epitalon, from Russia. Before I take it, I'm going to try to get another Life Length telomere length profile to serve as a baseline, as well as report on the last three years of TA-65 consumption.
And thereby hangs a tale. I guess this is good a time and place as any to tell it.
In August, 2011, I began taking 4 capsules a day of TA-65. Dr. Ed Park of Recharge Biomedical was my guide and my source of TA-65. It's expensive... $8,000 a year.
The following May (2012), I had my telomere lengths tested, using Life Length as the testing agency. My telomere lengths came back decently high. I continued to take 4 capsules of TA-65 a day. Two-and-a-half years later, in October, 2014, I had my telomere lengths tested again. By this time, Life Length had completely reworked at least the way they reported their spectral histograms of telomere lengths. My original blood-sample readings were still on file, and Dr. Park got the May, 2012, results reworked, along with the October, 2014, results. This time, in retrospect, my original May, 2012, report looked quite different, with readings that put me way down in median telomere length for my age. Astoundingly, between May, 2012, and October, 2014, my median telomere length jumped from 7,000 base pairs to 9,500 base pairs (in other words, by 2,500 base pairs). My critically short telomere cutoff jumped 1,000 base pairs from 6,000 base pairs to 7,000 base pairs. My telomere length curve faded out at 25,000 base pairs in the orginal 2012 baseline study and vanished at 35,000 base pairs in the October, 2014 follow-up study... that is, it rose by 10,000 base pairs over the 2.5-year period
I was flabbergasted. If this had been results from Bill Andrews' upcomng hTert augmentation experiment, it might have been believable (and wonderful) news. But this was TA-65 at work.
I called Dr. Park to see if he had an idea why there had been this huge jump. I think he said that he had had one other patient who had experienced a 1,000 base pair increment.
One possibility that crossed my mind was that if I had had an infection that had triggered massive replication of luekocytes, that might possibly (??) explain my humongous increase in median telomere lengths. Still, I'm not aware of having an infection in May, 2012, and even if I did, it's hard to imagine a 2,500-base pair drop in my median telomere length due to some minor infection.
I continued to take 4 dapsules of TA-65 a day until late 2016, when I ran out.
This past summer, I ordered another Life Length telomere testing kit from Dr. Park. Just after the kit arrived, I had a stomach virus. I delayed taking the test to acoid possibly confounding its results. Unfortunately, by the time I was ready to take the test, the FedEx envelope had timed out. But I think it's important that take this third telomere length test before I start something that really might extend my telomeres.
I have copies in the internet of the Life Length histograms for the May, 2012, and October, 2014, leukocyte telomere length distributions. I'll try to look up their internet addresses and post them here.
"Can't we just get it made as a research chemical?"
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