摘要

As possible markers of biological age, telomere length (TL) has been associated with age-related diseases such as myocardial infarction (MI) with conflicting findings. We sought to assess the relationship between TL and risk of future MI in 915 healthy participants (51.7% women) 65 years or older from a population-based prospective cohort (the HUNT 2 study, Norway). Mean TL was measured by quantitative PCR expressed as relative T (telomere repeat copy number) to S (single copy gene number) ratio, and log-transformed. During a mean follow up of 13.0 (SD, 3.2) years and 11,923 person years, 82 participants were diagnosed with MI. We used Cox proportional hazard regressions to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Relative TL was associated with age in women (P=0.01), but not in men (P=0.43). Using relative TL as a continuous variable, we observed a higher risk of MI in participants with longer telomeres with HRs of 2.46 (95% CI; 1.13 to 4.54) in men, and 2.93 (95% CI; 1.41 to 6.10) in women. Each 1-SD change in relative TL was associated with an HR of 1.54 (95% CI; 1.15 to 2.06) and 1.67 (95% CI; 1.18 to 2.37) in men and women, respectively. Compared with the bottom tertile of relative TL, HR of incident MI in top tertile was 2.71 (95% CI; 1.25 to 5.89) in men, and 3.65 (95% CI; 1.35 to 9.90) in women. Longer telomeres in healthy participants 65 years or older are associated with a high risk of incident MI. Future large scale prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings and explore the potential association between TL and MI.

  • 出版日期2017-6