How will Obama’s telomeres hold up under stress?
Medical experts estimate that during their tenure, U.S. Presidents age about twice as fast as the rest of us due to stress. If that’s true, Barak Obama might look 55 rather than 51, both outwardly and at the molecular level in four years.
It seems that segments of our DNA, called telomeres, serve as biological clocks. As we age, cells divide and the telomeres, which are sort of like protective caps on the end of chromosomes, shorten and eventually erode until the cell stops dividing altogether. Most animals have short telomeres. So do people with rare aging syndromes who become prematurely gray and wrinkled and die young. And stress, it seems, hastens the erosion of telomeres. Perhaps Obama’s calm, Zen-like demeanor will prevent such aging. Only time will tell. Read more about it here.
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Cindy Billhartz Gregorian is a features reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She has reported for the Healthy & Fit section since its first issue. She's a distance runner with seven marathons under her belt. 
