Test for Life Expectancy

It will tell you how long you canlive, provided it all works perfectly. Unfortunately that is not so easy and I suspect that this will merelytell you if you are below or above average at the moment.

Much more valuable are protocolsthat repair telomeres and actually show signs even of reversing or at least stabilizingthe effect.

In the end, this will be drivenby insurance companies who will be better able to price their product riskprofile.  It will be valuable when thesecompanies are taking on the larger underwriting risks. 

I also suspect that chronic lowlevel risk profiles will show up better, if that item about stress holds true.  Once the insurance industry organizes the statistics we may well be able to even discern the direct effects of tobacco and the like.

The £400 test that tells you how long you'll live

DNA breakthrough heralds new medical era – and opens ethical Pandora'sbox

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Monday, 16 May 2011

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-163400-test-that-tells-you-how-long-youll-live-2284639.html

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

A blood test that can show how fast someone is ageing – and offers thetantalising possibility of estimating how long they have left to live – is togo on sale to the general public in Britain later this year.

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

Scientists behind the €500 (£435) test said it will be possible to tellwhether a person's "biological age", as measured by the length oftheir telomeres, is older or younger than their actual chronological age.

Medical researchers believe that telomere testing will becomewidespread within the next five or 10 years, but there are already somescientists who question its value and whether there should be stronger ethicalcontrols over its wider use. In addition to concerns about how people willreact to a test for how "old" they really are, some scientists areworried that telomere testing may be hijacked by unscrupulous organisationstrying to peddle unproven anti-ageing remedies and other fake elixirs of life.

The results of the tests might also be of interest to companiesoffering life-insurance policies or medical cover that depend on a person'slifetime risk of falling seriously ill or dying prematurely. However, there isa growing body of scientific opinion that says testing the length of a person'stelomeres could provide vital insights into the risk of dying prematurely froma range of age-related disorders, from cardiovascular disease to Alzheimer'sand cancer. "We know that people who are born with shorter telomeres thannormal also have a shorter lifespan. We know that shorter telomeres can cause ashorter lifespan," said Maria Blasco of the Spanish National CancerResearch Centre in Madrid,who is the inventor of the new commercial telomere test. "But we don'tknow whether longer telomeres are going to give you a longer lifespan. That'snot really known in humans," she added.

"What is new about this test is that it is very precise. We candetect very small differences in telomere length and it is a very simple andfast technique where many samples can be analysed at the same time. Mostimportantly, we are able to determine the presence of dangerous telomeres –those that are very short."

Dr Blasco's company, Life Length, is in talks with medical diagnosticcompanies across Europe, including the UK, to market the test and collect bloodsamples for analysis in Spain.A deal with a company operating in Britain is likely within a year,she said.

"We need to have a clinical company to send us the blood[samples]. We are in contact with several groups in the UK who are interested," DrBlasco said.

Life Length is anticipating hundreds of requests from people wanting tohave their telomeres tested and is expecting demand from thousands more oncethe company is able to bring down the cost of the test as public demandincreases.

Although Life Length is not the only company selling telomere tests, itis the only one gearing up for over-the-counter sales to the public and theonly company with an accurate-enough test to be of practical use, saidProfessor Jerry Shay of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre inDallas.

"This test devised by Blasco is so accurate that it is likely toprovide more useful information than some of the other tests out there rightnow," said Professor Shay, who is a scientific consultant for Life Length."What's important in ageing is the shortest telomeres. What makes cellsstop growing is the shortest telomeres, not the average telomere length, whichis what other tests look at.

"Everyone talks about the chronological age, but there is also abiological age, and telomere length is actually a pretty good representation ofyour biological age. Telomeres are important – there is no question ofthat," he said.

Asked why the general public would be interested in taking a telomeretest, Dr Shay said: "I think people are just basically curious about theirown mortality. If you ask people what they worry about, most people would saythey are worried about dying."

He added: "People might say 'If I know I'm going to die in 10 yearsI'll spend all my money now', or 'If I'm going to live for 40 more years I'llbe more conservative in my lifestyle'. The worrying thing is that if thisinformation ever got to a point where it is believable, insurance companieswould start requiring it in terms of insuring people.

"If you smoke or you're obese your insurance rates are higher, andif you have short telomeres your insurance rates might be higher too."

Scientists do not yet believe they can narrow down the test predictionto calculate the exact number of months and years a person has yet to live, butseveral studies have indicated that individuals with telomeres that shorterthan normal are likely to die younger than those with longer telomeres.Telomere research is considered to be one of the most exciting areas inbiomedical science and last year the Nobel Prize in medicine was shared betweenthree scientists who are pioneers in the field.

Interestingly, one of the Nobel laureates, Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California San Francisco, is an enthusiastic proponent of telomere testingwhile another of the prize-winners, Carol Greider of Harvard Medical School, is more scepticalof its benefits.

"Do I think it's useful to have a bunch of companies offering tomeasure telomere length so people can find out how old they are? No," DrGreider recently told the journal Science.

Dr Blasco, a former post-doctoral student in Dr Greider's laboratory,is more certain of the benefits. "It will be useful for you to know yourbiological age and maybe to change your lifestyle habits if you find you haveshort telomeres," she said.

Telomeres: a short history

* 2003 Scientists studying 20-year-old blood samples from 143 peopleshow that telomere length is good indicator of whether someone is likely tolive for 15 years or more once they reach 60.

* 2004 Women living with stress of having a sick child are found tohave shorter telomeres. Other research suggests that meditation or other formsof stress reduction may lengthen telomeres.

* 2007 Study of men in Scotlandshows those with the longest telomeres were half as likely to develop heartdisease than those with shorter telomeres. Telomere length was as good ascholesterol levels at predicting the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

* 2009 Short telomeres linked with inherited bone marrow disease.

* 2010 GM mice with no telomerase, an enzyme that elongates telomeresin some cells, age prematurely compared to normal mice. The ageing effects werereversed after injections of telomerase.

* 2011 Study of civil servants in the UK shows that those with feweducational qualifications have shorter telomeres than those with highereducational qualifications. People with poor backgrounds are known to agefaster and suffer more age-related diseases.