Remain Young without Cigarettes
Published on March 2, 2009 4:30 AM
Researchers found that smoking cut the people youth. For example they observed that smokers and people with premature aging disease suffer same cell defect.
Cigarettes smoke causes the same cellular defect seen in people with Werner's syndrome - a rare genetic disease that makes people age very fast.
Statistics show that smokers can die about 10 years before their time. Now researchers may have found a key to this process, giving them unexpected new paths to treatment.
The key comes from the observation that smokers aren't the only people who age too fast. In their 20s, people with a rare genetic disorder called Werner's syndrome get gray hair, thin skin, and hoarse voices.
They soon develop diabetes, hardening of the arteries, and weak bones. In their 40s or 50s, they tend to die of heart disease and cancer.
Smokers also age prematurely and tend to die of heart disease and cancer. That’s mean that between this rare disease and smokers there are a link.
Werner's syndrome is caused by a mutation in a gene called WRN. The gene makes the WRN protein that protects and repairs DNA in every cell of the body.
Researchers collected lung cells from cigarettes smokers with emphysema. The cells had too little WRN protein. The smokers' WRN genes were normal, but something was keeping them from making enough WRN.
When the researchers cultivated lung cells in the laboratory, they found that cigarette smoke extract decreased the cell's WRN production -- and made the cells age more quickly.
