>> Speaker: Hi, I'm Liz Szabo with Kaiser Health News.
I've read about some studies of toxic stress in children.
I'm finding that there's difference in terminal length
in these children with toxic stress and I was wondering
about your thoughts on the mechanism.
Is it just a coincidence?
And what does that say about aging if the terminal length
is determined in childhood
>> If it's possible to bring up my slides, I'd like to but
I want to point out that there is two issues with
all the studies, most of the studies, let me say,
that are in the press.
One of them is that they use a methodology that
is problematic and I hope I pointed that out.
The other is, sorry?
Thank you.
Maybe to the last slide that I had.
So if we cannot reproduce these studies with
better quality measures like the ones I showed you that
is a problem and as we have developed this testing
with less variable, we have not been able to reproduce
some of these studies so that is a main problem and the
NIH actually had a workshop last Fall to discuss how
are we gonna address the methodologic because there
is no question that early child trauma has a harm
biologically and has many harms that may not be measurable
biologically.
But do we have to use the telomeres in excuse
to come to that conclusion?
So, the other is even if it were methodologically sound
I think a lot of these studies show differences that are
statistically significant, okay.
But as you see here, both the control and the experimental
groups fall within what Carol mentioned as a buffer zone.
So it may not be causing true aging so to speak because
the threshold of fallen short is far lower.
Far lower.
So I think those are the two concerns I have.
No question early childhood trauma problematic.
Maybe it's not the telomere and even if it is, there is many
reasons to fix it and I don't think the telomere is a good
way to measure it.
>> Speaker: Cindy Hoffman, Biomaxis.
Let me give you a kind of a family case history and you tell
me what it is.
I will be very very short here.
A father and two sons.
The father and the younger son, both smokers, have
the genetic predisposition to pulmonary emphysema
which they both clinically manifest.
The father and the older son both have
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Is there any connection that the elder son is a non-smoker?
Is there any connection with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma?
Any idea?
>> It's hard to make diagnosis in these settings, I think.
>> Speaker: Okay.
Sorry about that.
>> I think the point to make is that there are connections
between diseases that we didn't previously understand.
Studying these carefully, the outpour of technology
and understanding of human genetics will help us identify
those in terms of the public health.
I think there's no reason to need genetics to help and
to implement policies that help people stop smoking.
Those are my comments on that but I'm happy to talk
afterwards still.
>> Speaker: Okay, thank you.
>> I'm gonna add because lymphoma is my field.
>> Speaker: Oh Good.
>> Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is many many diseases with many
causes.
>> Speaker: Oh, okay.
Wait, one more, quickly, I'm sorry.
Are we at the point now where everybody should have
genetic testing?
I mean, I do.
I wouldn't dare walk in a physician's office
without knowing.
>> I feel strongly about this, sorry I'm talking too much.
The idea of testing everybody and sequencing everybody
and I think that is not the way to have the highest yield
for this type of genetic information.
>> Speaker: Okay.
>> What I showed you is we were able to focus the testing
and the recognizing of these clinical problems by zooming
in and I think what I'm trying to say is bigger science
is not always better and there are certainly harms
of identifying variance that we don't understand the
significance of yet.
There is potentially excessively worrying people about
things that we're not ready to make live, so I think
genetic medicine, from my personal point of view,
in order for it to have its full promise has to be directed
a bit more focused.
There is areas like cancer where we have clear
evidence for that.
But to the public, widely, I think that's a different story.
>> Speaker: Maybe a bit more focused being if you see
a five generation family history the same thing keep
showing up then test is, okay.
>> And maybe there is an intermediate between
five generations and the entire public.
>> Speaker: Okay.
>> There may be other settings where we can study that
more carefully before policies that say let's do it
for everybody.
>> Speaker: Thank you very much.
>> Speaker: Thank you, I'm Jeff Patton.
I'm here on behalf of myself.
Dr. Walston brought up the crucial role of mitochondria.
Is there any known connection between telomeres and
mitochondria health, if you will?
>> At this point, I don't think there is any direct evidence.
There are some indirect pathways that people have implicated
but I think that that kind of analysis needs a lot more
in depth study, so at this point I wouldn't say there's
a direct connection.
>> Thank you very much.