No Association Between Telomere Length and Survival Among the Elderly and Oldest Old

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Epidemiology. 2006 Mar;17(2):190-194.

No Association Between Telomere Length and Survival

Among the Elderly and Oldest Old.

Bischoff C, sen HC, Graakjaer J, Andersen-Ranberg

K, Vaupel JW, Bohr VA, Kolvraa S, Christensen K.

From the *Institute of Human Genetics, Aarhus

University, Aarhus C, Denmark; the daggerDepartment of

Statistics, Institute of Public Health, University of

Southern Denmark, Odense C, Denmark; double daggerThe

Danish Twin Registry, Epidemiology Unit, Institute of

Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense

C, Denmark; the section signLaboratory of Molecular

Gerontology, National Institute on Aging, National

Institute of Health, Baltimore, MD; the

parallelDepartment of Clinical Genetics, Vejle

Hospital, Vejle; and the paragraph signMax Planck

Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.

BACKGROUND:: The consistent findings of a negative

correlation between telomere length and replicative

potential of cultured cells, as well as a decreasing

telomere length in a number of different tissues in

humans with age, have led to the suggestion that

telomeres play a role in cellular aging in vivo and

ultimately even in organismal aging. Furthermore, one

small longitudinal study of elderly individuals has

suggested that longer telomeres are associated with

better survival. METHODS:: Telomere length was

measured as mean terminal restriction fragment length

on blood cells from 812 persons, age 73 to 101 years,

who participated in population-based surveys in

1997-1998. Among the participants were 652 twins. The

participants were followed up through the Danish Civil

Registration system until January 2005, at which time

412 (51%) were dead. RESULTS:: Univariate

regression analyses revealed that longer telomeres

were associated with better survival (hazard ratios =

0.89 [95% confidence interval = 0.76-1.04] per 1 kb in

males and 0.79 [0.72-0.88] per 1 kb in females,

respectively). However, including age in the analyses

changed the estimates to 0.97 (0.83-1.14) and 0.93

(0.85-1.03), respectively. Intrapair comparison showed

that among 175 twin pairs in which at least one died

during follow up, it was the twin with the shorter

telomere length who died first in 97 (55%) of the

pairs (95% confidence interval = 48-63%). We could not

confirm the recently reported negative correlation

between telomere length and obesity or between

telomere length and smoking. CONCLUSION:: This

longitudinal study of the elderly and oldest old does

not support the hypothesis that telomere length is a

predictor for remaining lifespan once age is

controlled for.

PMID: 16477260 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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