"ucsdhealthsciences:  Telomeres (yellow) on human chromosomes. Image courtesy of Michael West. Caught short with a cold Telomeres are the ""caps"" that sit at the ends of chromosomes in every cell, protecting vital DNA sequences from damage. Think of them as extended bumpers. Over the years, a number of studies have linked shorter telomeres to everything from aging to aging-related conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease and dementia. Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University say they've found evidence that shorter telomeres affect the well-being of relatively young, healthy people too. These people, the scientists write in JAMA, have a higher risk of catching a cold. The researchers looked at 152 healthy adults, ages 18 to 55, living in and around Pittsburgh. They took blood samples and measured the telomere lengths in leukocytes, white blood cells involved in the immune response. Then they put the participants in quarantine and exposed them to a virus that causes the common cold. More than two-thirds of the volunteers – 105 people, 69 percent – became infected with the virus; 33 actually developed colds. When researchers compared telomere measurements with who got sick, they found that, generally speaking, shorter telomeres in four types of blood cells were associated with a higher risk of infection. Most notably in a type of T-cell (another kind of immune response cell known as a lymphocyte) called CD8CD28. The link between shorter telomeres and catching a cold became stronger with increasing age in the study subjects. The researchers speculate that T-cells with shorter telomeres don't proliferate as well as T-cells with longer telomeres, making them less effective at removing virus-infected cells. ""A provocative possibility is that telomere length is a very stable marker of disease susceptibility, with associations between telomere length and clinical outcomes beginning to emerge in early adulthood,"" the authors wrote. It's too early to know how this basic research will translate clinically. Lots of folks have suggested that maintaining telomere health is akin to maintaining overall well-being. That remains to be proven conclusively, but it does beg the obvious question: How do I keep my telomeres long and healthy? Alas, shortening appears to be part of the aging process (every time a cell divides its DNA for replication, it's telomeres shorten too), but there is some evidence to suggest that things like reduced stress and a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids might slow the shortening process or generally boost cellular health."