Key points from article :
People born with abnormally short telomeres suffer a variety of conditions.
New research identifies why telomeres change from healthy to unhealthy with age.
Telomeres normally form a loop structure, where the chromosome end is hidden.
When loop unfolds, the chromosome end is exposed and perceived as broken DNA.
It is not telomere length that matters, but telomere structure.
New super-resolution microscopy allows loops to be seen.
The study was published in the journal Molecular Cell.
