If some aspect of human aging is directly linked to short telomeres, does the gradual shortening of telomeres coincide with the long term aging process over a lifetime?
Probably, but perhaps not in all tissues. Under normal conditions most tissues can last a typical life span. However, with the improvement in sanitation, the development of antibiotics, vaccines, and modern pharmaceutical drugs, humans are living longer. This could NOT have been selected for in evolutionary terms, when the average human lived 30-40 years before the 20th century. Thus, we are observing aged-related decline in normal people who live a long time. In the past we only observed this in disease states such as AIDs where T-cells become low due to HIV killing mature cells and in muscular dystrophy where kids run out of muscle satellite cells. However, in older individuals without diseases, we are seeing immunological deficiencies, wounds that do not heal (such as pressure ulcers), wearing down of the vascular endothelium leading to coronary disease, proliferative decline of retinal pigmented epithelial cells leading to age-related blindness. etc. In these age-related disorders,
