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by summer_steven 3156 days ago
Not going to prevent aging as well as people think.

As cells age, the risk for mutations occuring when they divide increases. The reason these cells stop dividing and become senescent is because dividing elderly cells poses a high cancer risk.

I think this may buy the trappings of youth (plump skin, clear eyes, etc) at the cost of a higher risk of cancer.

2 comments

Yes, but the remaining non-senescent cells are obviously not damaged too much, and thus CAN divide - perhaps they did not divide as often in their lifetime, their ancestors were not as stressed, or their DNA was not compromised. If you make room for those cells to divide, that should be a good thing.
gametes never really stop dividing...