The Hayflick Limit, as it has become known, can be thought of as a last line of defense against cancer, kind of like a recursion depth limit [...]
Preventing cells from becoming senescent, or reversing their senescent state, may therefore be a bad idea, but what we can do is remove them
When do the cells with sufficiently long telomeres run out? Removing senescent cells sounds good, but if all the cells have a built-in recursion limit, at some point there won’t be any cells with sufficiently long telomeres left in the body. Assuming a non-decreasing division rate, this puts a time limit on longevity after this intervention.
(is this time limit just really large compared to current lifespans, so we can just figure it out later?)
EDIT: nevermind, the answer to this seems to be in the “Epigenetic reprogramming” section; TLDR pluripotent stem cells
Not all cells in the adult body do divide, most of them I think divide only rarely if ever. Cells that divide more regularly generally express telomerase to keep their telomeres from running out. Telomeres running out may still be an issue though, so there are people looking at ways of lengthening them via telomerase expression.
When do the cells with sufficiently long telomeres run out? Removing senescent cells sounds good, but if all the cells have a built-in recursion limit, at some point there won’t be any cells with sufficiently long telomeres left in the body. Assuming a non-decreasing division rate, this puts a time limit on longevity after this intervention.
(is this time limit just really large compared to current lifespans, so we can just figure it out later?)
EDIT: nevermind, the answer to this seems to be in the “Epigenetic reprogramming” section; TLDR pluripotent stem cells
Not all cells in the adult body do divide, most of them I think divide only rarely if ever. Cells that divide more regularly generally express telomerase to keep their telomeres from running out. Telomeres running out may still be an issue though, so there are people looking at ways of lengthening them via telomerase expression.