Telomere length and mortality risk among adults in the United States: The role of age and race and ethnicity

Abstract

Purpose: To examine whether there was an association of leucocyte telomere length (LTL) with all-cause, cardiovascular (CVD)- and cancer-specific mortality risks among U.S. adults; and whether these associations vary with race and ethnicity and age.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999 to 2002 and the 2015 Linked Mortality File on adults 25 years or older (n = 6,526 and 1,753 deaths). Cox proportional hazards regression was used to quantify the association of LTL with each outcome adjusting for baseline sociodemographic and health-related characteristics. We tested a three-way interaction for LTL, race and ethnicity, and age groups.

Results: After adjustment, the rate of dying for all-cause and CVD-specific mortality was at least 24% lower for a 1 kilobase increase in LTL. When compared with adults with the shortest telomere, the rates of dying were at least 17% lower for all-cause and CVD-specific mortality for those with longer telomere. For all-cause mortality, increase LTL was associated with lower rate of dying among non-Hispanic Blacks 45 years or older, and non-Hispanic Whites 65 years or older.

Conclusions: We found that increase telomere length was associated with lower all-cause and CVD-specific mortality rates among U.S. adults. For all-cause mortality, this association varies within racial and ethnic groups across age groups.

Keywords: All-cause mortality; Cancer; Cardiovascular diseases; National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey; Racial/ethnic disparities; Social epidemiology; Telomere length.