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Cleaning up lifestyle can reverse ageing process Those who switched to a strict vegetarian lifestyle, exercised and practised yoga showed genetically younger cells. — Thinkstockphotos Why is it so hard to swat a housefly? Trends Prof Yash
Pal THIS UNIVERSE
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Cleaning up lifestyle can reverse ageing process THE results of a study conducted by the University of California suggest that going on a health kick could reverse cell ageing, according to researchers.
The small pilot study, conducted by a team from the Preventative Medicine Research Institute, examined how telomere shortness in human beings acts as a “prognostic marker of ageing, disease and premature morbidity”. Just as shoelace tips stop fraying, telomeres keep chromosomes stable and prevent mix-ups when cells divide. But each time a cell divides, its telomeres shorten. In the end they can no longer ensure chromosomal stability and this is when genetic mistakes begin to occur. Eventually the cell freezes and stops dividing, or destroys itself. The speed at which telomeres shorten varies in individuals and biological ageing is faster in people who already have rapidly-shortening telomeres. Short telomere length in white blood cells is especially associated with age-related diseases, including many types of cancer. But the results of this study showed positive changes to diet and lifestyle encouraged longer telomeres. Researchers followed 35 men who had suffered low-risk prostate cancer and had chosen to undergo active surveillance. Twenty-five male participants placed in the “intervention group” underwent a series of lifestyle changes to their diet, activity, stress management, and social support such as counselling. Ten men in the control group did not undertake any lifestyle changes and continued to live as they normally would. Blood samples were taken for analysis from both groups five years later. Men in the intervention group who had switched to a strict vegetarian lifestyle, exercised and practiced yoga showed considerably genetically younger cells. Instead of the length of their telomeres shortening, they increased by 10 per cent. In contrast, the telomeres of men in the control group had shortened in length by 3 per cent. It has been suggested as a trigger mechanism for the genetic scrambling associated with prostate cancer. Men with short telomeres in prostate cancer-associated cells are much more likely to die from the disease. Professor Dean Ornish, from the Preventive Medicine Research Institute at the University of California in San Francisco, US, who led the team, said: “The implications of this relatively small pilot study may go beyond men with prostate cancer. “If validated by large-scale randomised controlled trials, these comprehensive lifestyle changes may significantly reduce the risk of a wide variety of diseases and premature mortality. “Our genes, and our telomeres, are a predisposition, but they are not necessarily our fate.” “Our bodies often have a remarkable capacity to begin healing themselves, and much more quickly than we did once realise, if we simply make the lifestyle changes that are really the primary determinants of our health and well-being,” he said. “It’s not the fountain of youth, but it certainly is a step in the right direction. Until now we thought that only telomeres could get shorter. Now we found that they actually can get longer.” Results were published in the Lancet Oncology Journal. However, some experts are arguing that as the group were only monitored for a five year period, it was too soon to draw definite conclusions from the results. Biochemist Dr Lynne Cox, from Oxford University, said: “This new study suggests that reducing stress, improving diet and increasing exercise have the effect of not only preventing telomere loss but also of leading to small but significant increases in telomere length, as measured in circulating white blood cells. “It is perhaps too soon to judge whether this increase in telomere length will correlate with increased longevity or healthspan. “There are two things to bear in mind here. Firstly, short telomeres that occur as result of chronic stress are highly associated with poor health, and studies in mice have shown improved tissue health when telomeres are restored experimentally. Secondly, by contrast, globally increasing telomere length in cancer-prone mice actually predisposes to more aggressive cancers. “The small increases in telomere length in this new human study are more likely to correlate with improved health than cancer risk, though it is too early to be definite.” The studies authors also concluded that: “Larger randomised controlled trials are warranted” to confirm their findings. — The Independent
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Why is it so hard to swat a housefly? TRYING to swat a fly is like trying to shoot Keanu Reeves in The Matrix because time appears to move more slowly in the minds of smaller animals, a new study has claimed. The ultra-nimble fly is capable of processing nearly seven times as much information in a second as a human. This means a rolled-up piece of newspaper that is moving so fast that it appears as a blur to our eyes is, to the fly, more like the slow-motion bullets that are easily dodged by Neo, Reeves’ character in The Matrix. A paper published in Animal Behaviour journal found the perception of time was linked to the size of an animal’s body and metabolic rate. But it can also change depending on the circumstances: time appears to slow down during stressful situations like a car crash because in an attempt to avoid disaster, the brain increases the amount of information it is taking in. Dogs are able to process information at twice the rate of humans and so tend not to be interested in television. All they see is a flickering image, as if a projector had broken and the film slowed. The scientists used the point at which a flickering light appears as a solid beam as a way to examine how different animals perceive time. Houseflies can see a light flickering at a rate nearly seven times faster than we can. “That’s because they are getting much more information per second through their visual system… so that second feels longer,” one of the researchers, Dr Luke McNally, of Edinburgh University, said. “These animals are perceiving the world in a very, very different way.” This explains why flies seem so hard to hit. “[For the fly] it feels like you are moving so slowly towards them. It’s the same as the famous bullet-time scene where the bullets are moving at this incredibly slow rate as far as Keanu is concerned,” Dr McNally said. At the other end of the scale, time rushes by for the slow-moving leatherback turtle because it gets only about a third of the amount of information that humans do in a second. “This perception of time co-evolved with how fast you can move, how fast your metabolism is and how small you are,” Dr McNally said. “There’s very little point in gaining all this information if you cannot react to it.” However, there is at least one animal whose perception of time is at odds with its physical characteristics. “Tiger beetles can run faster than their eyes can keep up,” Dr McNally said. “They run towards their prey, then they have to stop, and then sprint again and hope they’ll hit into it.” Dr Andrew Jackson, from Trinity College Dublin, who led the study, said the effect may also account for the way time seems to speed up as we get older: “It’s tempting to think that for children time moves more slowly than it does for grown ups, and there is some evidence that it might.” — The Independent
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Trends SINGAPORE: Scientists have developed artificial muscles that could allow robots to lift 80 times their own weight, giving the machines superhuman strength and ability. A research team from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Faculty of Engineering has created artificial, or ‘robotic’ muscles, which could carry a weight 80 times their own and can extend to five times their original length when carrying the load — a first in robotics. The invention will pave the way for the constructing of life-like robots with superhuman strength, researchers said. Red grapes, blueberries boost human immunity WASHINGTON: A new study has found that red grapes and blueberries can enhance immune function in humans. In an analysis of 446 compounds for their the ability to boost the innate immune system in humans, researchers in the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University discovered just two that stood out from the crowd — the resveratrol found in red grapes and a compound called pterostilbene from blueberries. Icy comet collisions can produce building blocks of life WASHINGTON: A new study suggests that the building blocks of life can spontaneously come into existence when icy comets smash into planets. Scientists have discovered a “cosmic factory” for producing the building blocks of life, amino acids, in the research. They have discovered that when icy comets collide into a planet, amino acids can be produced. These essential building blocks are also produced if a rocky meteorite crashes into a planet with an icy surface. — Agencies
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THIS UNIVERSE The Sun is made of gases that have no fixed shape. Then, why is the Sun always circular in shape? Why does the temperature of fire remain constant? Fire as such does not have a fixed value of temperature. It depends on what is burning, and what are the cooling systems operating. The temperature at the centre of the Sun might be millions of degrees. At the moment of the Big Bang, if really there was one, it might have been billions of degrees! Fire is not a thing; it is a happening. And keeping the temperature constant has no meaning. Readers can e-mail questions to Prof Yash Pal at palyash.pal@gmail.com
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THE results of a study conducted by the University of California suggest that going on a health kick could reverse cell ageing, according to researchers.
The small pilot study, conducted by a team from the Preventative Medicine Research Institute, examined how telomere shortness in human beings acts as a “prognostic marker of ageing, disease and premature morbidity”.
It is true that the gases in a heavily body are not confined within a fixed boundary, but they are not free to roam all over the place. They are in general control of the overall gravitational potential of the celestial body. This potential for the Sun is approximately spherical in shape. We have to realise that in such potential confinement of the particles is not done as if they are imprisoned by impenetrable walls. Therefore, momentum distribution of energetic particles does allow some spatial spread. The boundary of the Sun is not like an impenetrable wall, though it might seem so to lay observers incapable of observing fine resolution.