Telomeres and the natural lifespan limit in humans.
| Citation | Steenstrup, Troels, et al. “Telomeres and the Natural Lifespan Limit in Humans”. 2017. Aging, vol. 9, no. 4, 2017, pp. 1130–1142. |
| Center | UCSD-UCLA |
| Author | Troels Steenstrup, Jeremy D Kark, Simon Verhulst, Mikael Thinggaard, Jacob B Hjelmborg V, Christine Dalgård, Kirsten Ohm Kyvik, Lene Christiansen, Massimo Mangino, Timothy D Spector, Inge Petersen, Masayuki Kimura, Athanase Benetos, Carlos Labat, Ronit Sinnreich, Shih-Jen Hwang, Daniel Levy, Steven C Hunt, Annette L Fitzpatrick, Wei Chen, Gerald S Berenson, Michelangela Barbieri, Giuseppe Paolisso, Shahinaz M Gadalla, Sharon A Savage, Kaare Christensen, Anatoliy I Yashin, Konstantin G Arbeev, Abraham Aviv |
| Keywords | leukocytes, life-expectancy, Longevity, maximal lifespan, Sex |
| Abstract |
An ongoing debate in demography has focused on whether the human lifespan has a maximal natural limit. Taking a mechanistic perspective, and knowing that short telomeres are associated with diminished longevity, we examined whether telomere length dynamics during adult life could set a maximal natural lifespan limit. We define leukocyte telomere length of 5 kb as the 'telomeric brink', which denotes a high risk of imminent death. We show that a subset of adults may reach the telomeric brink within the current life expectancy and more so for a 100-year life expectancy. Thus, secular trends in life expectancy should confront a biological limit due to crossing the telomeric brink. |
| Year of Publication |
2017
|
| Journal |
Aging
|
| Volume |
9
|
| Issue |
4
|
| Number of Pages |
1130-1142
|
| Date Published |
12/2017
|
| ISSN Number |
1945-4589
|
| DOI |
10.18632/aging.101216
|
| Alternate Journal |
Aging (Albany NY)
|
| PMID |
28394764
|
| PMCID |
PMC5425118
|
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