The Interesting Science: The technique used to investigate the replacement of cells in humans ingeniously utilizes the unfortunate fact that during the Cold War the nuclear states conducted above ground nuclear tests that spread radioactive Carbon-14 all over the globe. Carbon-14 combines with oxygen in the atmosphere to form CO2. This results in a mixture in the atmosphere of CO2 formed with normal, non-radioactive Carbon-12 or Carbon-13, and CO2 formed with Carbon-14. This CO2 is then used by plants such as wheat and eaten by animals such as cattle. When we eat crops or livestock, the mixture of Carbon-12, Carbon-13 and Carbon-14 becomes part of our cells, and most importantly, part of the DNA formed when a new cell is born. Since the DNA is not replaced over the life of a cell, the Carbon-14 in a cell’s DNA when the cell is born is pretty much the Carbon-14 it will always have. Since we know how much Carbon-14 was in the atmosphere before nuclear testing, we know how much was in the air during the testing years, and we know how it was eliminated from the atmosphere after the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty outlawed above ground testing in 1963, it’s possible to estimate the turnover of cells.
For example, if a person born just before nuclear testing shows no Carbon-14 from the fallout years in his cerebral cortex neurons, that suggests that no cerebral cortex neuron cells were added after birth. If any new cells had been formed, they would have incorporated Carbon-14 into their DNA. If, on the other hand, a person born right at the peak of the fallout years shows little or no fallout Carbon-14 in his cerebral cortex cells, that would suggest that all the cerebral cortex neuron cells had been replaced. They would have incorporated non-radioactive carbon into their new DNA relatively recently, after most of the Carbon-14 had been washed out of the atmosphere. Otherwise most of them would have some Carbon-14 still in the DNA from when the person was born during the height of the Cold War.
This is a very much simplified version of what a team lead by Dr. Jonas Frisén at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Karolinska Institute in Sweden has been doing. It is their studies that produced the estimates for turnover of cerebral cortex neurons, fat cells, and cardiomyocytes given above.
