Title: The Telomere Effect
Author: Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn, Elissa Epel
Publisher: Orion Spring, Orion Publishing Group Ltd., Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y 0DZ
Pages: 398
Price: Rs. 499/-
When does a man gets old is a very tricky and difficult to answer the question. The human body does not become old at a particular time. Look at some of the facts. After the age of 13 years, growth rate of body slows down. Growth process of the human body stops by the age of 20 years… After the age of 25 years, his metabolic system starts slowing down. At the age of 30 years, his muscle cells power starts diminishing. After 40 years of age, most people need spectacles to read. In short, human body starts loosing strength of his different organs of his body. The question is when does the process of ageing starts? It starts at the different stages. But we do not label a young man of 40 years as an old man. But after the age of 60 years, the cumulative effect of the ageing of his different organs is visible. We call him an old man. He gets diseases like blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular problems and in some cases much more. Some people get these diseases at the early stage of life and though, because of modern medicine they live longer, their life becomes miserable. But the longer life he gets is nothing but a period full of diseases.
Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn and the co-author Elissa Epel argue that this long span of diseases is the result of unhealthy telomeres that live at the ends of our chromosomes. Authors say that telomeres length is a key issue to our healthy life. They say, “Telomeres, which shorten with each cell division, help determine how fast your cells age and when they die, depending on how quickly they wear down. The extraordinary discovery from our research labs and other research labs around the world is that the ends of our chromosomes can actually lengthen—and as a result, ageing is a dynamic process that can be accelerated or slowed, and in some aspects even reversed. Ageing need not be, as a thought for so long, a one-way slippery slope toward infirmity and decay. We all will get older, but how we age is very much dependent on our cellular health.”
Authors have explained in great detail effects of cellular health, shortening of telomeres and their effects on human body. It is a new concept to look at the process of ageing and diseases one gets in his life. Dr Elizabeth Blackburn is a renowned microbiologist who won Nobel for physiology in 2009 and Dr Elissa Epel is a leading health psychologist. Both of them have looked at the changes at the micro level that is at a cell level, in a human body. The health of a cell plays an important role in man’s health and telomere plays a vital role in the health of man’s body and mind as well. Quality and length of sleep, habits of movements, world beyond mind and body shape telomere. Environment, food habits, mental stress are important factors for the health of telomeres. Exposures to violence, trauma, abuse and socioeconomic hardships in childhood have all been linked to shorter telomeres in adulthood.
Telomeres are impacted by one’s lifestyle, mental health and environment contribute to man’s physical health is a well-known fact. But authors argue, and their argument is based on the research, that these factors affect telomeres significantly and it is reflected in man’s physical and mental condition. Authors say, “Our genes are like computer hardware; we cannot change them. Our epigenome, of which telomeres are a part, is like software, which requires programming. We are the programmers of the epigenome. To some extent, we control the chemical signals that orchestrate the changes.” How we can control these changes and make telomeres healthy is an interesting part of the book and authors have discussed it in great detail.
Though the subject of the book is complicated, it is for the common reader and authors have put it in a very lucid language and racy style. It is a peep at the micro level of human body and enlightens the reader of a very complex issue. The book is full of diagrams, pictures, informative boxes that help the common reader to understand the issue. Authors merit salute for their efforts to make the complicated issue readable and easy to understand.
