Telomeres and gold compounding

[balletdragon]

Ok so I am working with a high school honors bio level of understanding so if this is completely off please let me know.

So regarding the difference between Feruchemical gold and atium: the gold stores health (the body’s ability to be totally put together, and the ability to return to said put-togetherness after sustaining damage) and atium stores youth (the body’s ability to recognize what it is supposed to be)

In biology some years ago, I learned that we have built in safeguards against cell mutations called telomeres. These telomeres basically prevent a cell from multiplying an obscene number of times. While obviously this is not something that works as intended perfectly (we still lose far too many people to cancer) the idea brought up an interesting thought.

Bloodmakers can grow skin when they sustain damage; but where do those cells come from? If they are multiplying from cells already in the body then would someone who uses bloodmaker abilities repeatedly eventually run out of telomere length? The only answer that seems to make sense to me is that if one could increase their youth then that would probably allow them to have extended telomeres.

if you know more about biology than me please inform me, and if you know more about the cosmere than me please inform me as well! Thanks!

[Calderis]

This is a common thought process actually, and unfortunately for Bloodmakers/gold compounders, it doesn't work out for them. Age is part of your Spiritual Aspect and as such, gold does not prevent age related deterioration, it will only heal you to the peak of health for your age. 

Spoilered for general means of cosmere immortality, followed by the relevant quote. 

Spoiler

Iceblade44

So White Sand [than Elantris] is earlier... Then how the heck old is Kriss then? Will we ever get an answer as to why every worldhopper is flipin immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

There is some time-dialation going on. I'll explain it eventually; we're almost to the point where I can start talking about that. Suffice it to say that there's a mix of both actual slowing of the aging process and relative time going on, depending on the individual. Very few are actually immortal.

Faera

Implying that some are actually immortal?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on which definition of immortal you mean.

Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.)

Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.)

Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.)

Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.)

Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The sleepless.)

Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.)

Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.)

And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in.

Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of cognitive shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity.

Shagomir

Heals from wounds, but still ages.

Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone compounding Gold?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you are correct.

Shagomir

As a Bloodmaker ages what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age?

This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind.

...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 29, 2016)

Quote

Shagomir

Heals from wounds, but still ages.

Would Bloodmaker Ferrings exist in this category as well? If not, what about someone compounding Gold?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you are correct.

Shagomir

As a Bloodmaker ages what keeps them from healing the damage and carrying on as a very old, but very healthy person? Do they come to a point where they can't store enough health to stave off the aches, pains, diseases, and other things that come with old age?

This makes sense for traditional Feruchemy as it is end-neutral, so storing health becomes a zero sum game - eventually, you're going to get sick and you're not going to be able to overcome it with your natural healing ability no matter how much you manipulate it with a goldmind.

...Unless you've got a supply of Identity-less goldminds lying around. Would a Bloodmaker with a sufficient source of identity-less goldminds (or the ability to compound, thus bypassing the end-neutral part of Feruchemy) eventually just die from being too old?

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.

And we see this in Miles PoV in Alloy of Law. 

Quote

Miles puffed on his cigar, thoughtful. As always, he was drawing upon his goldmind, invigorating himself, refreshing his body. He never felt sick, never lacked energy. He still had to sleep, and he still grew old, but other than that, he was practically immortal. So long as he had enough gold.

 

Edited April 30, 2019 by Calderis

[balletdragon]

Do we know then how long it takes for ones spiritual ideal to age to death. Because back in the day I’m sure people thought that living till 30 was pretty great because they did not have to ability to heal from certain illnesses. When accounting for the ability to fight infection forever when exactly does ones spirit die?

[SwordNimiForPresident]

1 hour ago, balletdragon said:

Do we know then how long it takes for ones spiritual ideal to age to death. Because back in the day I’m sure people thought that living till 30 was pretty great because they did not have to ability to heal from certain illnesses. When accounting for the ability to fight infection forever when exactly does ones spirit die?

People didn't generally die of "old age" in their 30's. Usually it was some combination of disease, malnourishment and injury/subsequent infection.

[Rhapsody]

Also telomeres don't prevent cell mutations or cancer.

The body has several different mechanism to prevent the replication process going wrong which also is one just one of the hallmarks of cancer. There are in total six hallmarks namely sustaining proliferative signaling, evading growth suppressors, resisting cell death, enabling replicative immortality, inducing angiogenesis, and activating invasion and metastasis. (I bolded the one that has to do with replication.)

Mutation safeguards include special proteins that check the DNA after replication, immun system responses to falsely replication cells and many many more.

And if you think that our intestinal system renews itself every 36 hours and that except for the cells of the nervous system every part of our body gets renewed each day, week or month (depending on the cells) I would say the system works pretty well.

Back to Telomeres. Telomeres are necessary for cell replication, because of its mechanism. Because the protein responsible for replicating the DNA (DNA-Polymerase) needs a bit of DNA strand to attach, this part therefore cannot be replicated. So each replication the DNA strand gets shortened on the 5' end a bit. Telomerases are repetitive nucleotide sequences on that end, that prevent essential DNA information from getting deleted. Essentially some inconsequental part of the DNA gets lost and the cell remains functional. As a secondary function telomeres stabilize the chromosomes.

As people age the telomeres become shorter and eventually the important parts of the DNA strand become damaged, which is thought to be one of the reasons for some diseases that come with old age.

Research into increasing telomere lenght hopes to prolong health in old age or to even conquer some parts of aging completly.

 

Back to the Cosmere. I therefore believe that bloodmakers would probably have a way to increase their telomere length otherwise their DNA would get damaged rather quickly. They probably can't enlarge them beyond the point they should be at their respective age because of the way health works of the spiritual aspect, which means they will eventually succumb to the effects of old age though they can perhaps heal from many of the assosiated diseases. They probably also age due to other effects (extended exposure to radiation, loss of muscular elasticity, abrasion of carilage etc. etc. etc.) whose effects are so minimal, we don't even realize them until they show visible or tangible results.

Edited May 1, 2019 by Rhapsody

[balletdragon]

@Rhapsody that makes lots of sense because if they can change to spiritual ideals of their age then of course they would be able to extend their telomeres to the accurate length for their age. Thanks!

 

Also if I may ask how do you know all this?

[Kingsdaughter613]

On 4/30/2019 at 11:20 AM, balletdragon said:

Do we know then how long it takes for ones spiritual ideal to age to death. Because back in the day I’m sure people thought that living till 30 was pretty great because they did not have to ability to heal from certain illnesses. When accounting for the ability to fight infection forever when exactly does ones spirit die?

The thirty years is misleading. The average life span was skewed by the numerous deaths in infancy and childbirth. Eliminate everyone who died in the first three years of life and the number goes up by several decades.

If you survived childhood, (and weren’t female) you would have a good chance of living to your fifties/sixties or longer. If you were female, you’d also have to survive your childbearing years - that’s why the female life span was lower than the male one for so long. Child birth is dangerous! (Go thank your Mom now.)

There are families where nearly all members have lived to be over 100 in excellent health. Scientists have been attempting to do research on these individuals to figure out why this is the case. (It doesn’t seem to have that much to do with lifestyle, interestingly. Many smoked, drank, worked long hours in the sun and didn’t eat the healthiest food.)