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A simple blood test to tell how long you will live

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/h...ow/8382727.cms

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A blood test that can show how fast someone is aging - and offers the tantalising possibility of estimating how long they have left to live - is to go on sale to the general public in UK later this year.

The controversial test measures vital structures on the tips of a person's chromosomes, called telomeres, which scientists believe are one of the most important and accurate indicators of the speed at which a person is aging.

Scientists behind the £435 test said it will tell whether a person is biologically aging, as measured by the length of their telomeres, and is older or younger than their actual chronological age, as measured by years since birth.

The scientists, however, do not yet believe they can narrow down the prediction to calculate the exact number of months and years a person has yet to live. They do not yet believe the information could be used to calculate the exact number of years a person has left to live, but several studies have indicated that individuals with shorter-thannormal telomeres are likely to die younger than those with longer telomeres.

Medical researchers believe that telomere testing will become widespread within the next five or 10 years, but there are already some scientists who question its value and whether there should be stronger ethical controls over its wider use.

In addition to concerns about how people will react to a test for how old they really are, some scientists are worried that telomere testing may be hijacked by unscrupulous organisations trying to peddle unproven anti-aging remedies and other fake elixirs of life.

The results of the tests might also be of interest to companies offering life-insurance policies or medical cover that depend on a person's lifetime risk of falling ill or dying prematurely.

However, there is a growing body of respectable scientific opinion that says testing the length of a person's telomeres could provide vital insights into the risk of dying prematurely from a range of age-related disorders , from cardiovascular disease to Alzheimer's and cancer.

"We know that people who are born with shorter telomeres than normal also have a shorter lifespan," said Maria Blasco of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid, who is the inventor of the new commercial telomere test. "But we don't know whether longer telomeres are going to give you a longer lifespan. That's not really known in humans."

"What is new about this test is that it is very precise. We can detect very small differences in telomere length and it is a very simple and fast technique where many samples can be analysed at the same time. Most importantly, we are able to determine the presence of dangerous telomeres - those that are very short."
Blasco's company, Life Length, is in talks with companies across Europe to market the test and collect blood samples for analysis.

how about accidents such as car crashes, murders, natural disasters.

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Originally Posted by lllggg (Post 7437154)

how about accidents such as car crashes, murders, natural disasters.

Well, barring acts of god and human intervention, it'd be a pretty good way to plan your retirement. If the test says you're not going to live past 65, then you might as well stop working at 55 and not save like a miser.

Well, we are all programmed to die in our DNA, makes sense to find the answers within the chromosomes. Whether its the correct finding time will tell!
Posted via RS Mobile

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Originally Posted by Culverin (Post 7437157)

i agree it's a great new idea.
id love to know, however id be pretty disappointed if an accident came my way haha

Step 1: Get the test and find out how long you have left to live.

Step 2: Get cryogenically frozen.

Step 3: :troll:

what's the cost on that ^^^^
i remember watching a show of that and i think some guy in the states did it.

I see problems with this. How could this affect treatment if a doctor knows that a person only has another 6 years to live? Do they get bumped by someone else who needs an organ and will live for another 20? What about insurance companies charging premiums if they got a hold of this information?

I like the idea, but it feels a lot like a pandora's box.

All this test does is measure how long your telomeres are, aka, how many more times your cells can replicate. This matters in some cases such as severe aging.

Most cases of death are not due to severe aging, this test won't be able to tell if you're going to be dying by cancer, heart disease, other diseases, infections and the other trillion ways a generally aged person may die of...

Useless idea in medicine for 99% of the population.

Hmm I find it a little silly, it wouldn’t be very informative. And not to mention, not all cells have the same telomere length.
I Bet life insurance companies are gna set up high premiums or refuse life insurance. They want your money but not so much your risk. But then, you could take the test and be killed in an accident thus confounding the test results. Seem useless but im sure there are also the benefits.

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Originally Posted by lllggg (Post 7437404)

what's the cost on that ^^^^
i remember watching a show of that and i think some guy in the states did it.

it was a guy in the UK.... i think his name was Austin Powers :troll:

cancer cells turn telomerase (which produces the telomeres) back on, so i mean .... if you have long telomeres you're either gonna live really long or you have cancer lol.

they're completely misrepresenting the test

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Originally Posted by lllggg (Post 7437404)

what's the cost on that ^^^^
i remember watching a show of that and i think some guy in the states did it.

http://www.arterimalaysia.com/wp-con...ng_squint2.jpg

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Originally Posted by dhillon09 (Post 7438042)

Yep it's one of the few criteria needed for a cell line to become 'immortal'