Excelife wrote:
> A Medline Search comes up with over 160,000 papers including the
> phrase "growth factor".
>> I've reviewed a number of articles and read the abstracts on a small portion
> of these papers and some very exciting work is going on.
>> Unfortunately most of the papers I've reviewed say somthing like, "we applied
> tranforming growth factor beta2 to epidermal cells which allowed these cells
> to grow on a matrix of synthetic fibers..." but they don't explain how these
> growth factors work. What cellular mechanism is being activated by these
> growth factors? What is their effect on other cellular systems like the
> telomeres?
I don't see why they need to be having any effect on telomeres at all.
After all, it does not take many doublings of *all* of a bunch of cells
to create a *lot* of usable tissue. So maybe the tissue will then have a
smaller telomeric lifespan potential that other comparable body tissue,
so what? As has been pointed out by many posters such a difference may
be inconsequential for *overall* body aging.
It is only if one is *convinced* that telomere shortening is behind
*all* global body aging (as you are Thomas), that one is unhappy and
frustrated by these growth factor publications. I expect that 99.999% of
them never even concerned themselves about telomeres at all.
--Tom
Tom Matthews
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