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

Batty, G. David; Wang, Yanzhong; Brouilette, Scott; Shiels, Paul G.; Packard, Chris J.; Moore, Jasbir S.; Samani, Nilesh J.; Ford, Ian

doi:10.1136/jech.2009.088427

Cited by 55 publications

(63 citation statements)

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“…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).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Several studies have found short telomere lengths associated with various factors related to low SES (Cherkas et al, 2006;Batty et al, 2009;Shiels et al, 2011), particularly if experienced during early life (Kananen et al, 2010;Kiecolt-Glaser et al, 2011;Steptoe et al, 2011;Needham et al, 2012;Surtees et al, 2012). Fathers who are older at the time of their offspring's birth may be more established financially and socially, and therefore able to contribute more resources toward the physical and psychological well-being of the child (Vigil and Geary, 2006), bestowing better health and coping behaviors for life.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Prescott

Wong

et al. 2012

Human Reproduction

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what is known already: Telomere length is considered a highly heritable trait. Recent studies report a positive correlation between paternal age at birth and offspring LTL. Maternal age at birth has also been positively associated with offspring LTL, but may stem from the strong correlation with paternal age at birth. study design, size and duration: The Nurses' Health Study (NHS) is an ongoing prospective cohort study of 121 700 female registered nurses who were enrolled in 1976. Great effort goes into maintaining a high degree of follow-up among our cohort participants (.95% of potential person-years). In 1989-1990, a subset of 32 826 women provided blood samples from which we selected participants for several nested case -control studies of telomere length and incident chronic disease. We used existing LTL data on a total of 4250 disease-free women who also reported maternal and paternal age at birth for this study.participants/materials, setting and methods: Nested case-control studies of stroke, myocardial infarction, cancers of the breast, endometrium, skin, pancreas and colon, as well as colon adenoma, were conducted within the blood sub-cohort. Each study used the following study design: for each case of a disease diagnosed after blood collection, a risk-set sampling scheme was used to select from one to three controls from the remaining participants in the blood sub-cohort who were free of that disease when the case was diagnosed. Controls were matched to cases by age at blood collection (+1 year), date of blood collection (+3 months), menopausal status, recent postmenopausal hormone use at blood collection (within 3 months, except for the myocardial infarction case -control study), as well as other factors carefully chosen for each individual study. The current analysis was limited to healthy controls. We also included existing LTL data from a small random sample of women participating in a cognitive sub-study. LTL was measured using the quantitative PCR-based method. Exposure and covariate information are extracted from biennial questionnaires completed by the participants.main results and the role of chance: We found a strong association between paternal age at birth and participant LTL (P ¼ 1.6 × 10 -5 ) that remained robust after controlling for indicators of early life SES. Maternal age at birth showed a weak inverse association with participant LTL after adjusting for age at blood collection and paternal age at birth (P ¼ 0.01). We also noted a stronger association between paternal age at birth and participant LTL among premenopausal than among postmenopausal women (P interaction ¼ 0.045). However, this observation may be due to chance as premenopausal women represented only 12.6% (N ¼ 535) of the study population and LTL was not correlated with age at menopause, total or estrogen-only hormone therapy (HT) use suggesting that changes in in vivo estrogen exposure do not influence telomere length regulation.limitations and reasons for caution: The women in our study are not representative of the ge...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Prescott

Wong

et al. 2012

Human Reproduction

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“…The differences in this association that we observed across time and between sexes potentially explain conflicting findings in prior cross-sectional, longitudinal, and prospective studies of smoking and TL. Most previous cross-sectional studies in which an association between smoking and short TL was reported were studies of female subjects only (11)(12)(13)(14)16), whereas those in which no association was reported were mostly studies of men or of older subjects (21,(23)(24)(25)(26), among whom estimates may be more likely to be biased because of higher rates of smoking cessation among older men with short TL. Previous longitudinal studies in which associations between smoking and TL attrition were reported involved younger subjects than did studies in which such an association was not reported (17)(18)(19)(20), further suggesting that estimates obtained from studies of older individuals could be biased because of adverse health-driven smoking cessation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both processes have also been linked to TL shortening (7)(8)(9), leading to the hypothesis that smoking promotes TL shortening (10). However, epidemiologic reports of smoking and TL have been inconsistent; in some studies, investigators reported shorter TL associated with smoking (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20), whereas others found no association (21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26). This inconsistency has also been seen in studies of smoking and longitudinal measures of TL attrition, with associations between smoking and TL shortening seen in some studies (17,18) but not in others (19,20).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex-Specific and Time-Varying Associations Between Cigarette Smoking and Telomere Length Among Older Adults

Zhang¹,

Lauderdale²,

Pierce³

2016

Am. J. Epidemiol.

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Inconsistent associations between smoking and telomere length (TL) have been reported in epidemiologic studies, perhaps because of the time-varying nature of smoking behaviors. We estimated the associations of TL, which was measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction using saliva DNA, with concurrent and past smoking status reported biennially for up to 16 years before TL measurement in 5,624 participants in the Health and Retirement Study (1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008). Smoking was associated with reduced TL when we used prospective data on smoking statuses among men and women, but the association was strongly attenuated among men in crosssectional analyses. This attenuation was largely due to a higher rate of smoking cessation during the study period among men with shorter TL than among men with longer TL. Short TL was also associated with poorer overall health in men, which suggests that male smokers with short TL were more likely to quit smoking because of poor health. Analyses of years since cessation, smoking duration, and pack-years of smoking all support the hypothesis that increased cigarette use shortens TL. Our results provide a potential explanation for the inconsistent associations between smoking and TL reported in previous cross-sectional studies. Time-varying associations should be considered in future studies of smoking behavior, TL, aging, and disease risk.aging; Health and Retirement Study; sex; smoking; smoking cessation; telomere length Abbreviations: HRS, Health and Retirement Study; TL, telomere length.Telomeres are DNA-protein complexes at chromosome ends that protect DNA from damage. Shortening of the DNA component of telomeres occurs with cell division, with average leukocyte telomere length (TL) decreasing by approximately 25 to 50 base pairs per year in adults (1). TL has been studied extensively as a biomarker of aging and susceptibility to age-related diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and neurocognitive diseases (2-5).Cigarette smoking results in exposure to free radicals and reactive oxygen species, which leads to increased oxidative stress and inflammation (6). Both processes have also been linked to TL shortening (7-9), leading to the hypothesis that smoking promotes TL shortening (10). However, epidemiologic reports of smoking and TL have been inconsistent; in some studies, investigators reported shorter TL associated with smoking (11-20), whereas others found no association (21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26). This inconsistency has also been seen in studies of smoking and longitudinal measures of TL attrition, with associations between smoking and TL shortening seen in some studies (17, 18) but not in others (19,20). Furthermore, a study of older men in Finland (27) found that smoking during midlife was associated with short TL measured later in life but that smoking was not associated with TL in crosssectional analyses conducted in later life, which suggests that the timing of smoking beh...

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“…However, Adams et al [Adams et al, 2007] investigated the association between telomere length and life-course socio-economic status at age 50 in 318 participants in the Newcastle Thousand Families study and did not see correlations between telomere length and multiple measures of socio-economic position. Two other studies -1542 men in the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study and 624 individuals in the National Long Term Care Survey (NTLCS) -also failed to detect a correlation between telomere length and socio-economic status [Batty et al, 2009;Risques et al, 2010]. Moreover, a survey of 958 men and 978 women aged 65 years and over living in Hong Kong showed that -in men onlyafter adjustment for age and other confounding factors, a higher ranking in community standing was associated with shorter telomere length [Woo et al, 2009], which is the opposite direction of the findings reported by Cherkas et al and Steptoe et al Several distinct differences exist between these different reports.…”

Section: Perceived Stress and Adverse Life Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Telomeres and Lifestyle Choices

Avcı¹

2012

Reviews on Selected Topics of Telomere Biology

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

Abstract: Background. It has been hypothesised that socio-economically deprived people age more

Cited by 55 publications

References 15 publications

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

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

Sex-Specific and Time-Varying Associations Between Cigarette Smoking and Telomere Length Among Older Adults

Telomeres and Lifestyle Choices

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