I think I have been posting to the wrong group since it didn't seem I was
responding to scientific postings.
Question then:
Cell division can be correlated with youth, of course, since developing
organisms must increase cell number and are "young" by definition. Does
this necessarily mean that if cells never stopped dividing we would never
age or die and that this is the answer to stop the process of ageing? It
seems a likely point to start research but I don't think that the
restriction on the number of times a cell may divide is limiting life span
in our society.
I recently heard a seminar which compared the amount of certain inactivated
metabolic enzymes with age of donor of tissue sample. As much as 60% of the
protein appeared to be inactive by comparision of Western and activities in
older individuals. Inactivation was postulated to be by some sort of peroxide
modification and accumulation of inactive protein due to a decrease in amount
of a scavenger protein. What is the current state of this research?
sjohn at u.washington.edu
