No association between socio‐economic status and white blood cell telomere length

Abstract

SummaryIt has been hypothesized that more socio-economically deprived individuals age faster and, thus, have shorter telomeres than their more affluent counterparts. A weak association between white blood cell telomere length and socio-economic status in a large heterogeneous sample of females has recently been reported. In 318 individuals from a homogeneous birth cohort, we found no evidence of an association between any measure of socio-economic status and peripheral blood mononucleocyte telomere length at age 50 after control for lifestyle variables, gender and paternal age at birth. The results of this, and the previous study, suggest that there is little evidence of a strong or consistent correlation between white blood cell telomere length and markers of socio-economic status.

Current employment status, occupational category, occupational hazard exposure and job stress in relation to telomere length: the Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)

“…Our results regarding no differences in telomere length by occupational category are consistent with other reports showing no associations of telomere length with socioeconomic position based on occupation 21 23 39 40. Equivocal results were reported regarding the association between telomere length and other measures of socioeconomic position as well.…”

Socioeconomic status and telomere length: the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study

“…This therefore complicates data interpretation. Of the three previous studies in this field,6 7 8 in only one, an analysis of female twins,6 did socioeconomic status—as indexed by occupational social class—reveal any association with telomere length. In cross-sectional analyses in which a six-category scale of this index was collapsed into two groups6—manual and non-manual—women in the former occupations had markedly shorter telomere lengths than those in the latter.…”

“…Given the aforedescribed socioeconomic variations in age-related chronic disease, and the recent observation that shorter telomere length is related to CVD risk,3 4 5 one would anticipate that socioeconomic adversity would lead to reduced telomere length. However, in only three previous studies examining this relation of which we are aware, the evidence is inconclusive with positive6 and null associations reported 7 8. Notably, the only positive finding of a relation between socioeconomic disadvantage and telomere length was in the largest conducted to date—a cross-sectional analysis of 1552 female twins 6…”

Paternal age at birth is associated with offspring leukocyte telomere length in the nurses' health study

“…In a study of adult female twins, women classified to manual social classes had shorter telomeres than those in non-manual social classes (Cherkas et al, 2006). Others did not find a relationship between adult telomere length and indicators of SES at the time of blood collection (Adams et al, 2007;Batty et al, 2009;Kananen et al, 2010;Shiels et al, 2011;Steptoe et al, 2011;Surtees et al, 2012). Instead two studies observed a positive association between telomere length and educational attainment, an indicator of early life SES (Steptoe et al, 2011;Surtees et al, 2012).…”