Journal
LANCET
Volume 366, Issue 9486, Pages 662-664Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)66630-5
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NIA NIH HHS [AG021593] Funding Source: Medline
- Wellcome Trust Funding Source: Medline
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Obesity and smoking are important risk factors for many age-related diseases. Both are states of heightened oxidative stress, which increases the rate of telomere erosion per replication, and inflammation, which enhances white blood cell turnover. Together, these processes might accelerate telomere erosion with age. We therefore tested the, hypothesis that increased body mass and smoking are associated with shortened telomere length in white blood cells. We investigated 1122 white women aged 18-76 years and found that telomere length decreased steadily with age at a mean rate of 27 bp per year. Telomeres of obese women were 240 bp shorter than those of lean women (p=0.026). A dose-dependent relation with smoking was recorded (p=0.017), and each pack-year smoked was equivalent to an additional 5 bp of telomere length lost (18%) compared with the rate in the overall cohort. Our results emphasise the pro-ageing effects of obesity and cigarette smoking.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available