Overview

Telomeres are non-encoding DNA repeats at the tips of the chromosome. In the picture below they are the little yellow dots:

As our cells divide these tips shorten, typically from 12-15 'kilobase pairs' (kb) to 4kb over a lifetime¹, the cells which they inhabit become older and more dysfunctional and reproduce less often². Finally they hit the ‘Hayflick Limit’ at which point they become ‘senescent' and are unable to divide.

Over a decade ago it was discovered that an enzyme called telomerase can lengthen shortening telomeres. It exists in the body's immortal cells - germ cells and embryonic stem cells - but is not expressed in other cell types in quantities great enough to stop the erosion in them. It was shown that by activating telomerase in these types of cells in vitro they become immortalized, do not age across divisions and divide indefinitely.³ After a long search, a compound was discovered that can activate telomerase, in both mice and humans, both in vitro and in vivo, at substantial levels above 300% of normal⁴. That compound is TA-65.

A New Era

In our opinion aging is by design and telomere shortening is the mechanism by which that design is carried out. If you agree with us on that, you would probably consider it remarkable that for thousands of years, there has never been a way to lengthen them. As our ancestors labored in the creation of elixirs from alchemy and myth, and as the Egyptian, Roman and countless other empires rose and fell, the telomeres of every living human being on Earth moved inexorably in one direction – down.

Amazingly, those days have ended with this product. For the first time in human history we can - with a simple pill - reverse the process that lies at what we believe to be at the bottom of the cascade of cause and effect that is aging. We can literally reverse the clock of aging and elongate human telomeres⁵. The catch is that we still cannot elongate telomeres of average length. TA-65 targets critically short telomeres (<4kb) and elongates them only. This is because shorter telomeres preferentially recruit telomerase more easily than longer ones⁶. There appear to be some mechanisms at work in the cell, particularly involving the 'shelterin' complex that surrounds the telomere like a sheath, which block telomerase access to longer telomeres. The solution to this is to loosen the shelterin, or to overwhelm it with higher levels of telomerase, neither of which have been accomplished to date.

Elongation of telomeres is the first step though in a new era that we believe will eventually culminate in the defeat of aging via periodic controlled extension of telomeres.

Aging Biomarkers

So what is the consequence of lengthening the shortest of telomeres but not the others? The results are that the body is profoundly rejuvenated in many ways.

The cells in your body with the shortest telomeres are the most dysfunctional, the oldest, and are key players in age-related poor tissue function. ⁷ They do not pull their weight for the team, and in fact often disrupt the otherwise coordinated efforts of their neighbors. At the most extreme case, the cells are senescent and become toxic to surrounding cells. In areas where there has been chronic damage, causing high cell turnover, which leads to shorter telomeres and inferior repair cycles, these critically short telomeres exist in higher proportions than elsewhere and are causing greater damage. So the effects of reducing those cell types from your body, throughout all of your tissues, are potentially far-reaching.

Harley Study

A recent in-vivo human study of TA-65 published in 2010 in Rejuvenation Research entitled A Natural Product Telomerase Activator As part of a Health Maintenance Program showed that the immune system was remodeled, to a profile of someone on average 5-20 years younger. ⁸

As we age, the relative ratio of white blood cell types changes. The ratio of CD4/CD8 cells, for example, goes down with age. When this ratio falls below one, it is considered an immune risk profile (IRP).⁹ This ratio change is driven largely by the typical .57% increase in % of CD8+ cells per year as we age. ¹⁰ Also, the percentage of Natural Killer cells typically increases .3% per year. ¹¹ In cases where the relative ratio of a white blood cell type goes up, the current theory is that this is done as a compensation for the reduced efficacy of that cell type as it ages¹². The TA-65 group in this study however, experienced dramatic decreases after one year in in these cell types of 20% for CD8 and 17% for NK cells. The full effect of the immune system remodeling can be seen below¹³:

As you can see the changes in relative white blood cell types are substantial as compared to those changes typically associated with aging, and they were in the other direction. Again, the authors concluded that that represented an age-reversal of 5-20 years for the immune system profile. Particularly striking was the fact that the critically famous CD4/CD8 ratio increased substantially after a year of TA-65 treatment.

Blasco Study

In a subsequent study of the in vivo effects of TA-65 by Maria Blasco using mice entitled The Telomerase Activator TA-65 Enlongates Short Telomeres and Increases Health Span of Adult/Old Mice without Increasing Cancer Incidence, the team confirmed that the critically short telomeres were being lengthened¹⁴. They looked much more closely at the effects of various known biomarkers of aging and found that most of them were brought back in time significantly. Blasco's team found that TA-65:

Are There Adverse Effects?

In the Blasco study, the authors concluded that "TA-65 did not show any detectable negative secondary effects, including no increase in incidence of cancer."²³ In the Harley study the authors said that "physicians who monitored the health of the current study subjects [] reported no adverse events" and that "no new cases of Cancer or cardiovascular disease were reported"²⁴. However, we do caution our customers that TA-65 is a new and very powerful supplement and little is known about its long term (ie 10 year+) effects in humans.

Will you live longer on TA-65?

The in vivo human study did not cover a long enough time period to understand the impact on human lifespan. The Maria Blasco study on mice found absolutely no increase in either median or maximum life, however. ²⁵ This is not too surprising if we understand that the compound is unable to slow average telomere shortening at this stage. That being the case, then it is defenseless against the overall long term pace of aging, even though it is rejuvenating the function of many tissues due to its ability to lengthen short telomeres.²⁶ In the study, however, the mice were only given TA-65 for 4 months. Perhaps the results would have been different had the administration been continuous.

The Past and Future of Telomerase Activation

Today, there are many people who understand the telomere’s place at the heart of aging. In the 90s, there were far less - only a handful. One of them was Mike West, a charismatic visionary who was given millions in VC funding to start a company on a premise no less ambitious than the discovery of immortality through telomere extension. The result was Geron, a multi-million dollar corporation that sweated and toiled and eventually emerged with, among other things, a compound they proved in a publicly published study would elongate short telomeres in humans - TA-65. And now you can order it on the web and have it shipped to your house.

Not bad for the first 15 years of commercial efforts in telomere biology, wouldn't you say? Stay tuned for the next 15, because they may well include the lengthening of average telomeres. And in the next 50, we should be able to make that happen in stem cells where the elongation really needs to happen for it to 'stick', and throughout all stem cell types, in the correct proportions. When that day comes the Fountain of Youth will have been found. In the meantime TA-65 opens the door for us into a new era. It represents both the beginning of what is to come, as well as a very practical and powerful supplement that you can take today to rejuvenate your body in a more profound sense than has ever happened in human history.

TA-65 Supplement Facts