Pitfalls of Science

[sid325]

Well said Charles, agree completely.

Jacob

[Charles]

I really appreciate the comments. I wish someone with money could read my thoughts and act upon them. Let me say that although lifespans have increased the human body cannot live much past 90 years. Human cells have a maximum of about 70 divisions. The body needs 80 trillion new cells per year to maintain itself. When there are no longer any cells that can divide, death occurs. This happens around age 90 with about 110 being the upper limit.

In addition, the accumulated 20-30 quadrillion accumulated mutations further guarantee that the body cannot survive.

I am a great believer in holistic medicine. To me it's all about diet and exercise. I take no meds, weigh 140 lbs, and walk about 50-60 miles per week. I have a home gym. When ever I get tired I think: cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, and heart attack. This motivates me to keep going.

Medical science doesn't care about cures. It wants to treat. It would be devastating if disease was cured.

I will explain below in another comment but did you know that every piece of digital information in your body is created and transmitted through random chance? The mechanism is diffusion.

I eat a lot of nuts. Why? Nuts contain a lot of DNA, protein, and the right kind of fats. DNA contains nucleotides (A, G, C, T) and the body needs at all times abundant supplies of these vital molecules. Any imbalance can cause a critical mutation.

Below I'll talk a little about the critical role diffusion plays in Replication, Transcription, and Translation. I studied biochemistry for a long time before I understood the role of diffusion concerning these vital processes.

Again thank all for comments. I am recording all episodes of "How the Universe Works" tonight. I love all this stuff about the Universe. I don't know why but I find science endlessly fascinating even though I am frustrated by it.

[Puma Cat]

The reason death occurs with aging is due to telomere shortening. Cells can longer replicate when they reach the Hayflick limit.

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by Puma Cat

The reason death occurs with aging is due to telomere shortening. Cells can longer replicate when they reach the Hayflick limit.

Supposedly there is a way to lengthen telomeres. https://www.ornish.com/zine/five-foo...ect-telomeres/

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by PHC1

Supposedly there is a way to lengthen telomeres. https://www.ornish.com/zine/five-foo...ect-telomeres/

Not a good idea unless you want to die from cancer....telomeres are there to prevent us from dying from cancer.

And Liz Blackburn and Carol Greider stole the idea of telemere shortening and senesence from Brett Weinstein, and never credited him for his work.

[radio times]

I'm not depressed that were finite, everything else is too, even a black hole. Despite our bells and whistles, were simply a created species, that's all. I combine the spiritual with the scientific when I can. I truly believe there is an in in front of the finite, kinda making the base materials through thought alone, including me in the womb.

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by Puma Cat

Not a good idea unless you want to die from cancer....telomeres are there to prevent us from dying from cancer.

And Liz Blackburn and Carol Greider stole the idea of telemere shortening and senesence from Brett Weinstein, and never credited him for his work.

I’m really not looking or pursuing any longevity gimmicks myself. Reasonable diet of everything in moderation and reasonable exercise as in maybe I’ll exercise today, maybe not is good enough for me. Trying to live way past the golden age where one can carry on with life in dignity is not for me. Looking out the window of a nursing home hoping someone would visit that day with the nurse yelling it’s time for medication and a diaper change does not sound appealing to me at all.

[Charles]

Had a nice post. Power went out. Lost it. Will post later on. I want to talk about telomerase and diffusion's role in our demise.

Best

Charles

[Charles]

"Not a good idea unless you want to die from cancer....telomeres are there to prevent us from dying from cancer.

And Liz Blackburn and Carol Greider stole the idea of telemere shortening and senesence from Brett Weinstein, and never credited him for his work."


My reference biochem book (Voet Fundamentals of Biochemistry p.905) states this as a hypothesis also. The hypothesis states that our telomerase gene is turned off (inactive) because if it were not, we would all get cancer much quicker. I reject this hypothesis. The human cell can only divide about 70 times. Then we die. If we had active telomerase the fact that our body could be constantly supplied with new healthy replacement cells could only be positive. For each cell division the new cell acquires only about one mutation. Unless the mutation is in a critical area (very unlikely) it is harmless.

Bacteria have active telomerase. Therefore, a bacterial cell can divide forever. Telomeres are special sequences of DNA located on the ends of all chromosomes that protect the ends of the chromosomes from degradation. As the ends of the chromosomes become frayed and shortened by cell division, the cell loses its ability to divide and becomes senile. This is the main reason we age. Telomerase creates the new telomeres that when added to the ends of chromosomes, replenish and keep healthy the ends of chromosomes. It's a vital critical enzyme and it is inactive in non-cancerous human cells.

In all of Life, there is not cell that can replicate its DNA in both directions. Every time a human cell divides it loses one okazaki fragment of length (the length of one RNA primer) on both ends of all the chromosomes. Without telomerase to repair those ends, the telomeres are used up and the cell become senile. Normal human cells have the gene but it is not active.

In cancer telomerase is re-activated. Cancer cells have active telomerase. Cancer cells can divide forever. However, this does not mean telomerase causes cancer. Mutation causes cancer. Since every cancer cell possesses re-activated telomerase anyway, despite the fact that it is inactive in non-cancerous cells, our cells having a healthy telomerase gene, IMO, could not cause cancer. Again mutation causes cancer, not a healthy telomerase gene.

I’ll discuss diffusion and the role it plays in our demise below. Gotta go. Treadmill is calling.

Best,

Charles

[Charles]

I hope at the very least this thread will be helpful for folks to live a healthy life. As I have stated in the past, I am not at all impressed with medical science. However, I absolutely recommend you follow your doctor's advice, take all prescribed medications and treatments, etc. as you see fit to do.

Now on to diffusion and the role it plays in our demise. All cellular digital information employs random chance by means of passive diffusion to accomplish its creation and transmission from one point in the cell to another.

DNA is a digital molecule. First, let's consider DNA replication. This is accomplished in a semi-conservative fashion, meaning the daughter strand uses the parent strand as the DNA template. There are four DNA bases, adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine (A, G, C, T). No exceptions. In all Life DNA is composed of these bases sometimes called nucleotides. A bonds to T, G bonds to C, no exceptions. Incorrect bonding results in a mutation or replication error.

Let's say the next base on the template is A. For the bond to be correct the DNA polymerase must bond it to a T. It is a fact that regardless of where the DNA is replicated or what the cell type, it is passive diffusion that supplies the base to the enzyme, thus there is a 25% chance at best that the correct base will be supplied. In terms of digital logic, the enzyme must ask and answer on average 4 yes/no questions for a correct bond to occur. If there is an imbalance of nucleotides (bases), it may have to ask many more. Each yes/no question represents an attempt to bond with only one out of four on average (at best) being successful. (This is the reason to eat a balanced diet and stay in shape. It makes, IMO, a significant difference in your health. As we go along I will continue to reinforce this opinion.)

There is no active process. I studied biochemistry for 30 years before understanding this fact because it is not specifically dealt with in biochemistry books. So all cells employ the second law of thermodynamics in the form of random diffusion to replicate their DNA, i.e. their digital information.

Now let's do some math.The body has 80 trillion cell divisions per year because it needs this number of new cells to maintain itself. A human cell contains 6 billion nucleotides that must be successfully replicated. For this to happen the DNA polymerase enzyme must ask an average of 4 yes/no questions with each question being an attempt to bond. The enzyme relies on passive diffusion to supply the base (nucleotide). Therefore, it is critical for there to be an equal supply of these 4 molecules all through the cell.

This works out per year to 1.92e+24 yes/no questions the polymerase enzymes must answer successfully for no mutations to occur. The DNA polymerase enzyems are not up to this task so mutations are inevitable. They cannot be avoided. It works out to about one mutation (bonding error) per 6 billion bases or about one mutation per replacement cell. This is under the very best of circumstances. During our lifetimes we are exposed to numerous carcinogens, many of which are a result of an unhealthy lifestyle, that cause the built-in error inherent to replication to be much worse. By the age of 80 I estimate my body will have accumulated 20-30 quadrillion mutations, as a result of the built-in error caused by passive diffusion.

In my next post I will propose a theoretical solution to this problem. If the polymerase could by means of an active process always be supplied with the correct base, mutations could be eliminated. If this active process was inactivated or destroyed, random diffusion would be the backup mechanism for supplying the base to the enzyme. Could human cells be operating using the backup system of passive diffusion? I hope there might be some comments which would be much appreciated.

Best

Charles