Telomeres and the natural lifespan limit in humans
Troels Steenstrup
(1)
,
Jeremy Kark
(2)
,
Simon Verhulst
(3)
,
Mikael Thinggaard
(4, 5)
,
Jacob Hjelmborg
(1, 6)
,
Christine Dalgård
(1)
,
Kirsten Ohm Kyvik
(7)
,
Lene Christiansen
(1)
,
Massimo Mangino
(8, 9)
,
Timothy D. Spector
(8)
,
Inge Petersen
(1)
,
Masayuki Kimura
(10)
,
Athanase Benetos
(11)
,
Carlos Labat
(11, 12)
,
Ronit Sinnreich
(2)
,
Shih-Jen Hwang
(13)
,
Daniel Lévy
(14)
,
Steven Hunt
(15)
,
Annette Fitzpatrick
(16)
,
Wei Chen
(17)
,
Gerald Berenson
(18)
,
Michelangela Barbieri
(19)
,
Giuseppe Paolisso
(19)
,
Shahinaz Gadalla
(20)
,
Sharon Savage
(20)
,
Kaare Christensen
(5)
,
Anatoliy Yashin
(21)
,
Konstantin Arbeev
(21)
,
Abraham Aviv
(10)
1
SDU -
University of Southern Denmark
2 Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine
3 Centre for Behaviour and Neurosciences, Chronobiology Unit
4 Odense University Hospital, Odense
5 Danish Aging Research Center, Institute of Public Health
6 The Danish Twin Registry
7 Institute of Regional Health Services Research
8 King‘s College London
9 Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
10 Center of Human Development and Aging, New Jersey Medical School
11 DCAC - Défaillance Cardiovasculaire Aiguë et Chronique
12 Service de Gériatrie [CHRU Nancy]
13 NHLBI - National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute [Bethesda]
14 PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques
15 Cornell University [New York]
16 Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington
17 Tulane University
18 Tulane Center for Cardiovascular Health
19 Geriatric Medicine and Metabolic Diseases
20 Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics [Bethesda, MD, États-Unis]
21 Duke University [Durham]
2 Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine
3 Centre for Behaviour and Neurosciences, Chronobiology Unit
4 Odense University Hospital, Odense
5 Danish Aging Research Center, Institute of Public Health
6 The Danish Twin Registry
7 Institute of Regional Health Services Research
8 King‘s College London
9 Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
10 Center of Human Development and Aging, New Jersey Medical School
11 DCAC - Défaillance Cardiovasculaire Aiguë et Chronique
12 Service de Gériatrie [CHRU Nancy]
13 NHLBI - National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute [Bethesda]
14 PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques
15 Cornell University [New York]
16 Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington
17 Tulane University
18 Tulane Center for Cardiovascular Health
19 Geriatric Medicine and Metabolic Diseases
20 Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics [Bethesda, MD, États-Unis]
21 Duke University [Durham]
Simon Verhulst
- Fonction : Auteur
- PersonId : 770881
- ORCID : 0000-0002-1143-6868
Athanase Benetos
- Fonction : Auteur
- PersonId : 764721
- ORCID : 0000-0002-5197-1515
Carlos Labat
- Fonction : Auteur
- PersonId : 780990
- ORCID : 0000-0002-5275-3405
Sharon Savage
- Fonction : Auteur
- PersonId : 1065391
Abraham Aviv
- Fonction : Auteur
- PersonId : 887709
Résumé
An ongoing debate in demography has focused on whether the human lifespan has a maximal natural limit. Taking a mechanistic perspective, and knowing that short telomeres are associated with diminished longevity, we examined whether telomere length dynamics during adult life could set a maximal natural lifespan limit. We define leukocyte telomere length of 5 kb as the 'telomeric brink', which denotes a high risk of imminent death. We show that a subset of adults may reach the telomeric brink within the current life expectancy and more so for a 100-year life expectancy. Thus, secular trends in life expectancy should confront a biological limit due to crossing the telomeric brink.