Smoking Your Telomeres Away.

Here's another reason to give up smoking:

"Tim Spector, director of the twin research unit at St Thomas' Hospital in London, and his team have shown that telomeres shrink dramatically in patients who are obese or heavy smokers."

So, put down the Camel lights and hit the gym or else no more telomeres for you. Interestingly, Drosophila can tolerate polymorphisms for telomere length and gene content (I believe this is an unpublished result, so no link). Of course, Drosophila are far advance compared to humans in that they have evolved telomerase independent mechanisms for the maintenance of telomeres.