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A comment on Scientists May Have Found Mechanism Behind Cognitive Decline in Aging. Parent comment

Re:Scientists May Have Found Mechanism Behind Cognitive Decl... by dillydogg on Sunday July 30, 2023 @08:44AM (#36930608)
Telomeres are just repeats at the end of chromosomes to allow for replication. They aren't directly involved in replication fidelity beyond allowing for replication to proceed. I guess protecting genes near chromosome termini but that's different than the mutations you would expect in cancer.
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Re:Scientists May Have Found Mechanism Behind Cognitive Decl... by herval on Sunday July 30, 2023 @03:50PM (#36935219)
my understanding is cancer gets more prevalent when the telomeres get old (short?), since it leads to more mutations/botched replication?
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Re:Scientists May Have Found Mechanism Behind Cognitive Decl... by dillydogg on Wednesday August 02, 2023 @12:16PM (#36972937)
I'm sorry for the delay, but this actually isn't quite right. Short telomere syndromes are not associated with cancer. In fact, it is long telomeres that have a strong association with cancer (largely because aberrantly activating telomerase can drive cancer development.)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22965356/ for more on short telomere syndromes.

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