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Comment by tarice | Hacker News Reader

Noting that the experiments described in the article were performed on yeast, can anybody better versed in biology convey a better idea on how applicable to humans these results are?

As described in the article, we both have telomeres, but as far as I know the comparison ends there.

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As a guy who's done some homebrewing, yeast can handle alcohol concentrations which if placed in a mammal bloodstream would result in instant death. Its a matter of about 1.5 orders of magnitude not a minor difference. That has certain implications for what their cellular insides can tolerate vs ours.

So something in the cellular structure of yeasts "shields their innards" a lot better than cells in our body. A moderate booze fest to the deep innards of a yeast cell might for a mammal cell be achieved by merely sniffing an open beer bottle. It would require further research.

Its a particularly bad combo, using yeasts and alcohols to extrapolate to humans. Like "randomly" selecting a halophile to extrapolate human salt tolerance, or "randomly" selecting a thermophile to extrapolate human temperature tolerance.

I see no similar obvious reason not to extrapolate caffeine/yeast combo to humans other than the usual multi-cellular vs unicellular issues.

Other research has already found an association between caffeine intake and lower incidence of cancer in humans. http://www.cancerletters.info/article/S0304-3835%2808%290066... So the research doesn't seem to transfer at all.

Well, this article states that caffeine shortens telomeres, and shortened telomeres are a hallmark of aging. Lengthened telomeres are associated with cancers. This seems to imply that the research done in this article (on yeast) correlates with the research you linked.

Noting that the experiments described in the article were performed on yeast, can anybody better versed in biology convey a better idea on how applicable to humans these results are?

Yes, I'd like to know too.

Which, if any of these genes that regulate telomere length are also present in humans?

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