Telomeres are the end caps of chromosomes, protecting the DNA complexes from deterioration during cell division. Telomere shortening is considered a marker of cellular aging, and prematurely shortened telomeres have been linked to increased risk of cancers, heart disease, dementia and death. Catherine Schaefer, from Kaiser Permanente (California, USA), and colleagues genotyped 675,000 telomere participant biomarkers, collected from men and women with an average age of 63 years. They then crossed-analyze biomarker status with data contained in the patient’s electronic medical records, as well as information demographic and behavioral surveys that have been conducted two years prior. The team found that individuals with telomeres in the shortest 10% may be 23% more likely to die in the three years following measurement of these DNA endcaps. Further, they found that smoking and drinking were linked to shorter telomeres; whereas higher education was linked to longer telomeres.
Link Between Short DNA Endcaps & Death Risk
M. Kvale, K. Lapham, T. Hoffmann, S. Sciortino, L. Walter, Y. Banda, I. Listerman, J. Lin, S. Hesselson, P. Kwok, E. Blackburn, C. Schaefer, N. Risch. “The Kaiser Permanente/UCSF Genetic Epidemiology Research Study on Adult Health and Aging: A genome-wide association study of telomere length in a multi-ethnic cohort of 100,000 subjects” [Abstract #112]. Presentation at the 2012 Meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, Nov. 2012.
