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Leukocyte telomere length and mortality in the Cardiovascular Health Study
AL Fitzpatrick, RA Kronmal... - The Journals ..., 2011 - biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals. ...Background. Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is related to diseases of aging, but studies of mortality have been inconsistent. Methods. We evaluated LTL in relation to total mortality and specific cause of death in 1,136 participants of the Cardiovascular Health Study who ...
Results. A total of 468 (41.2%) deaths occurred over 6.1 years of follow-up in participants with mean age of 73.9 years (SD 4.7), 65.4% female, and 14.8% African American. Although increased age and male gender were associated with shorter LT Ls, African Americans had significantly longer LT Ls independent of age and sex (p < .001). Adjusted for age, sex, and race, persons with the shortest quartile of LTL were 60% more likely to die during follow-up than those within the longest quartile (hazard ratio: 1.61, 95% confidence interval: 1.22–2.12, p = .001). The association remained after adjustment for cardiovascular disease risk factors. Evaluations of cause of death found LTL to be related to deaths due to an infectious disease etiology (hazard ratio: 2.80, 95% confidence interval: 1.32–5.94, p = .007), whereas a borderline association was found for cardiac deaths (hazard ratio: 1.82, 95% confidence interval: 0.95–3.49, p = .07) in adjusted models. Risk estimates for deaths due to cancer, dementia, and ischemic stroke were not significant.
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Leukocyte telomere length and mortality in the Cardiovascular Health Study |
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