With a life span of 122 years, Jeanne Calment was one of the longest-living women on record. When she was eighty-five, she took up the sport of fencing. She was still riding a bike into her triple digits.1 When she turned one hundred, she walked around her hometown of Arles, France, thanking the people who’d wished her a happy birthday.2 Calment’s relish for life captures what we all want: a life that is healthy right up to the very end. Aging and death are immutable facts of life, but how we live until our last day is not. This is up to us. We can live better and more fully now and in our later years.
The relatively new field of telomere science has profound implications that can help us reach this goal. Its application can help reduce chronic disease and improve wellbeing, all the way down to our cells and all the way through our lives. We’ve written this book to put this important information into your hands.
Here you will find a new way of thinking about human aging. One current, predominant, scientific view of human aging is that the DNA of our cells becomes progressively damaged, causing cells to become irreversibly aged and dysfunctional. But which DNA is damaged? Why did it become damaged? The full answers aren’t known yet, but the clues are now pointing strongly toward telomeres as a major culprit. Diseases can seem distinct because they involve very different organs and parts of the body. But new scientific and clinical findings have crystallized into a new concept. Telomeres throughout the body shorten as we age, and this underlying mechanism contributes to most diseases of aging. Telomeres explain how we run out of the abilty to replenish tissue (called replicative senescence). There are other ways cells become dysfunctional or die early, and there are other factors that contribute to human aging. But telomere attrition is a clear and an early contributor to the aging process, and—more exciting—it is possible to slow or even reverse that attrition.
We’ve put the lessons from telomere research into the full story, as it is unfolding today, in language for the general reader. Previously this knowledge has been available only in scientific journal articles, scattered in bits and pieces. Simplifying this body of science for the public has been a great challenge and responsibility. We could not describe every theory or pathway of aging or lay out each topic in fine scientific detail. Nor could we state every qualification and disclaimer. Those issues are detailed in the scientific journals where the original studies were published, and we encourage interested readers to explore this fascinating body of work, much of it cited in this book. We have also written a review article covering the latest research on telomere biology, published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Science, which will give you several good directions into the molecular-level mechanisms.3
Science is a team sport. We have been truly privileged to participate in research with a broad range of scientific collaborators from different disciplines. We have also learned from research teams from all over the world. Human aging is a puzzle made up of many pieces. Over several decades, new pieces of information have each added a critical part to the whole. The understanding of telomeres has helped us see how the pieces fit together—how aged cells can cause the vast array of diseases of aging. Finally a picture has emerged that is so compelling and helpful that we felt it was important to share it broadly. We now have a comprehensive understanding of human telomere maintenance, from cell to society, and what it can mean in human lives and communities. We are sharing with you the basic biology of telomeres, how they relate to disease, to health, to how we think, and even to our families and communities. Putting together the pieces, illuminated by knowledge of what affects telomeres, has led us to a more interconnected view of the world, as we share with you in the last section of the book.
Another reason we’ve written this book is to help you avoid potential risks. The interest in telomeres and aging is growing exponentially, and while there is some good information in the public domain, some of it is misleading. For example, there are claims that certain creams and supplements may elongate your telomeres and increase your longevity. These treatments, if they actually work in the body, could potentially increase your risk of cancer or have other dangerous effects. We simply need larger and longer studies to assess these potential serious risks. There are other known ways to improve your cell longevity, without risk, and we have tried to include the best of them here. You won’t find any instant cures on these pages, but you will find the specific, research-supported ideas that could make the rest of your life healthy, long, and fulfilling. While some ideas may not be totally new to you, gaining a deep understanding of the behind-the-scenes reasons for them may change how you view and live your days.
Finally, we want you to know that neither of us has any financial interest in companies that sell telomere-related products or that offer telomere testing. Our wish is to synthesize the best of our understanding—as it stands today—and make it available to anyone who may find it useful. These studies represent a true breakthrough in our understanding of aging and living younger, and we want to thank all who have contributed to the research that we are able to present here.
With the exception of the “teaching story” that appears on the first page of the introduction, the stories in this book are drawn from real-life people and experiences. We are deeply grateful to the people who shared their stories with us. To protect their privacy, we have changed some names and identifying details.
We hope this book is helpful to you, your families, and all who can benefit from these fascinating discoveries.