Attracting Abundance

- 114 -

The Law

Belief - XXVI

Remember the term "telomere"?. To recap telomeres are stretches of DNA at the end of protein-coding genes.(Note: Hey wait! Do all genes not code proteins? The answer is mind boggling. Only 2% of all DNA codes for proteins. The rest 98% of DNA is non-coding. Is all that 98% DNA of no value? They add tremendous value. The non-coding portion of DNA contains all mechanism by which environmental information can be used to modify the readout of the protein encoded genes. Remember that the structure of the protein encode genes does not change, only how it is read changes. To simplify the explanation, remember the Mechnao or Lego set that you played with as a kid. There are hundreds of parts in such sets, which can be fit together in different ways to assemble different things such as a crane, a truck, a home etc. The coding genes are the parts and the instructions for assembling them in different combinations to make different proteins are written in the non-coding portion. So from 19,000 parts (genes), one can make 120,000 models (proteins)).

Let us come back to telomeres. As discussed, it is part of the non-coding DNA. It serves two important functions:

1. it prevents the DNA double helix from unwinding, which would otherwise impair proper decoding of the DNA and thus produce defective proteins.
2. it provides a non-coding platform for reading the coded portion of the Genes fully.

The second function warrants a closer look. 

We have learnt that a cell must duplicate its DNA, fully and correctly, before it divides to ensure that each of its two daughter cells receives an exact replica. The process of replication begins with an enzyme, DNA helicase, unzipping the double helix. A large protein, DNA polymerase, attaches to the free end of the DNA strand. The polymerase moves on the DNA code like a railway engine moving on a track and in its wake assembles a replica. When the polymerase reaches the end of the DNA strand, the polymerase travels to the extended portion of the DNA i.e. telomere. It is like saying that the engine has moved to a parking track which is an extension of the main track on which it was traveling. Consider the situation of the telomere or the parking track not being there. The polymerase would have perforce stopped on the end coded portion of the strand, thus covering that portion of DNA code beneath making the end portion unavailable for decoding. So the daughter cell will now have the complete code plus a shortened telomere, shorter by the length of the polymerase which was standing at the extreme end of the telomere. Since telomere is non-coding, the trueness of the DNA coding in the the parent cell is maintained in the daughter cells. However each replication, the telomere becomes shorter. A point may come, hypothetically, when the telomere has been completely exhausted and the polymerase sits on the end of the coded portion of the DNA. Had this happened, the code could no more be fully read and the replication would have been incomplete.

To overcome the problem, nature provided another enzyme, telomerase, whose function  to add bits and pieces to the telomere length. This ensures that the telomere length is in-exhaustible and the replication process is fully executed by the ploymerase. This helps in assuring that the replicated DNA is not deficient over the parental DNA.

Now comes the surprise. It has been revealed by various studies (Blackburn et al, 2012, Nature;Bret, 2014, Scientific American; Carlson et al, 2014, Cancer and more) that life experience can influence telomerase activity. Stressful prenatal development experience, childhood abuse - verbal and physical, domestic violence, post-traumatic stress disorders, nutritional deficiencies, lack of love and care etc inhibit telomerase activity which propotes diseases and shorter life spans. In contrast, good exercise, positive outlook in life, positive emotions like happiness and gratitude, good nutrition, being in service, experiencing self love and love for others etc. enhance telomerase activity which then promotes health and longer life span. The primary influence controlling telomerase activity is the mind and thought process. The character of our life is determined by the environment, internal and external, and not by genes.

I will move away from cellular biology for a short file and take you to an article published in New York Times on 13th October, 1998 under the title Placebos Prove So Powerful Even Experts Are Surprised; New Studies Explore Brain's Triumph Over Reality written by Sandra Blakeslee, who is a science writer and specializes in brain science. You can read the full article in this link. I am going to quote some excerpts from this article:

"Many doctors know the story of ''Mr. Wright,'' who was found to have cancer and in 1957 was given only days to live. Hospitalized in Long Beach, Calif., with tumors the size of oranges, he heard that scientists had discovered a horse serum, Krebiozen, that appeared to be effective against cancer. He begged to receive it.

His physician, Dr. Philip West, finally agreed and gave Mr. Wright an injection on a Friday afternoon. The following Monday, the astonished doctor found his patient out of his ''death bed,'' joking with the nurses. The tumors, the doctor wrote later, ''had melted like snowballs on a hot stove.''

Two months later, Mr. Wright read medical reports that the horse serum was a quack remedy. He suffered an immediate relapse. ''Don't believe what you read in the papers,'' the doctor told Mr. Wright. Then he injected him with what he said was ''a new super-refined double strength'' version of the drug. Actually, it was water, but again, the tumor masses melted.

Mr. Wright was ''the picture of health'' for another two months -- until he read a definitive report stating that Krebiozen was worthless. He died two days later."

"Doctors in Texas are conducting a study of arthroscopic knee surgery that uses general anesthesia in which patients with sore, worn knees are assigned to one of three operations -- scraping out the knee joint, washing out the joint or doing nothing. In the ''nothing'' operation, doctors anesthetize the patient, make three little cuts in the knee as if to insert the usual instruments and then pretend to operate. Two years after surgery, patients who underwent the sham surgery reported the same amount of relief from pain and swelling as those who had had the real operations."

"For a while, many scientists thought that placebos might work by releasing the body's natural morphine-like substances, called endorphins. But that is not the only explanation, he said. While placebos can act globally on the body, they can also have extremely specific effects. For example, a study was carried out in Japan on 13 people who were extremely allergic to poison ivy. Each was rubbed on one arm with a harmless leaf but were told it was poison ivy and touched on the other arm with poison ivy and told it was harmless. All 13 broke out in rash where the harmless leaf contacted their skin. Only two reacted to the poison leaves."

"But now scientists, as they learn that the placebo effect is even more powerful than anyone had been able to demonstrate, are also beginning to discover the biological mechanisms that cause it to achieve results that border on the miraculous. Using new techniques of brain imagery, they are uncovering a host of biological mechanisms that can turn a thought, belief or desire into an agent of change in cells, tissues and organs. They are learning that much of human perception is based not on information flowing into the brain from the outside world but what the brain, based on previous experience, expects to happen next."

The concluding excerpt means that we are immensely influenced by environmental inputs and more by the way we interpret a stimulus and its expected effect on us.

Namaste

See you again

Prabir