{"id":160831,"date":"2023-03-23T02:22:40","date_gmt":"2023-03-23T07:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/telomere-shortening-a-sign-of-cellular-aging-linked-to-signs-of-alzheimers-in-brain-scans"},"modified":"2023-03-23T02:22:40","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T07:22:40","slug":"telomere-shortening-a-sign-of-cellular-aging-linked-to-signs-of-alzheimers-in-brain-scans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/telomere-shortening-a-sign-of-cellular-aging-linked-to-signs-of-alzheimers-in-brain-scans","title":{"rendered":"Telomere shortening\u2014a sign of cellular aging\u2014linked to signs of Alzheimer\u2019s in brain scans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/telomere-shortening-a-sign-of-cellular-aging-linked-to-signs-of-alzheimers-in-brain-scans2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Changes in the brain caused by Alzheimer\u2019s disease are associated with shortening of the telomeres\u2014the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that shorten as cells age\u2014according to a new study led by Anya Topiwala of Oxford Population Health, part of the University of Oxford, UK, published March 22 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.<\/p>\n<p>Telomeres on chromosomes protect DNA from degrading, but every time a cell divides, the telomeres lose some of their length. Short telomeres are a sign of stress and cellular aging, and are also associated with a higher risk of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Currently, little is known about the links between <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/telomere+length\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">telomere length<\/a> and changes that occur in the brains of people with neurological conditions. Understanding those relationships could offer insights into the biological mechanisms that cause neurodegenerative disorders.<\/p>\n<p>In the new study, researchers compared telomere length in <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/white+blood+cells\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">white blood cells<\/a> to results from brain MRIs and <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/electronic+health+records\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">electronic health records<\/a> from more than 31,000 participants in the UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database and research resource containing anonymized genetic, lifestyle and <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/health+information\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">health information<\/a> from half a million UK participants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Changes in the brain caused by Alzheimer\u2019s disease are associated with shortening of the telomeres\u2014the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that shorten as cells age\u2014according to a new study led by Anya Topiwala of Oxford Population Health, part of the University of Oxford, UK, published March 22 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,269,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-life-extension","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}