New frontiers in prevention
November 29, 2012
IT does not seem like that long
ago that three scientists, including
Elizabeth Blackburn, won the Nobel
Prize for discovering telomeres, and
now it looks as though that
discovery may well have heralded a
new frontier in general practice
diagnosis, treatment and
prevention.
This frontier comes in the shape
of a new saliva-based telomere test
from Telome Health ( a company
co-founded by Blackburn), which
looks set to launch in the first
quarter of 2013.
Telomeres are molecular caps at
the end of chromosomes that
protect DNA from degradation.
The new test, according to the
company, will provide doctors with
important data about their
patients' health and disease risk to
better inform their clinical
decisions.
In addition to clinical utility,
measuring telomere length will also
allow people to gauge their overall
health status and determine
whether lifestyle changes are
necessary, and potentially indicate
the effectiveness of those changes.
The test was recently put through
its paces in a clinical study involving
100,000 patients in which the
average telomere length of patients
was measured and analysed
relative to other health domains
and clinical outcomes.
The study showed that individuals
who had short telomeres had
increased risk of death in the threeyear
follow up period, and that
smoking, heavy alcohol
consumption, lower education, and
poor environments were associated
with short telomeres, while
moderate exercise was associated
with longer telomeres.
“Telomeres are one of the few
parts of the genome that can be
changed by lifestyle choices, and
hence telomere length
measurements can provide
valuable feedback on ones' disease
risks and, potentially, the effects of
lifestyle changes,” said Elizabeth
Blackburn.
Currently there are telomere tests
available, however according to
Telome Health, the new saliva
test will make the process available
to a much wider community, as it is
non-invasive and will be able to be
utilised in a doctor's office or at
home.
“The data from the saliva-based
testing in the large Kaiser-UCSF
research study is an exciting step
forward in the field of telomere
science, as it helps to advance the
use of telomere testing into regular
clinical practice,” Blackburn said.
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