Department of Genomics of Common Disease, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, Burlington-Danes Building, Hammersmith Hospital, Du Cane Road, London W12 0NN, United Kingdom.
J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2011 May;96(5):1500-5. doi: 10.1210/jc.2010-2924. Epub 2011 Feb 24.
Obesity in adults is associated with shorter mean leukocyte telomere length (LTL), a marker of biological age that is also associated with age-related conditions including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. However, studies of childhood obesity and LTL have proved inconclusive.
The objective of the study was to clarify the relationship between telomere length and childhood obesity by measuring the average LTL in a large case-control cohort.
LTL was measured in 793 French children aged 2-17 yr (471 with early onset obesity and 322 nonobese controls) using multiplex quantitative real-time PCR. The average LTL in the two groups was compared, and the relationships between telomere length and selected anthropometric and biochemical measurements were examined.
Obese children had a mean LTL that was 23.9% shorter than that of nonobese children (P < 0.0001). Telomere length was inversely associated with age (R = -0.17, P = 0.002 in controls; R = -0.15, P = 0.001 in cases), log weight (R= -0.13, P = 0.017 in controls; R = -0.16, P = 0.0004 in cases), and height (R = -0.15, P = 0.008 in controls; R = -0.17, P = 0.0002 in cases). The mean LTL of girls and boys was not significantly different in either the cases or controls or in the group overall.
Obese girls and boys have significantly shorter leukocyte telomeres than their nonobese counterparts, a finding that highlights a potentially deleterious impact of early onset obesity on future health.
成年人肥胖与白细胞端粒长度（LTL）的平均值缩短有关，LTL 是生物年龄的一个标志物，也与心血管疾病和 2 型糖尿病等与年龄相关的疾病有关。然而，儿童肥胖与 LTL 的研究结果尚无定论。
本研究旨在通过测量大样本病例对照队列中白细胞端粒的平均长度，阐明端粒长度与儿童肥胖之间的关系。
使用多重实时定量 PCR 测量了 793 名年龄在 2-17 岁的法国儿童（471 名早发性肥胖儿童和 322 名非肥胖对照儿童）的 LTL。比较了两组的平均 LTL，并检查了端粒长度与选定的人体测量学和生化测量值之间的关系。
肥胖儿童的平均 LTL 比非肥胖儿童短 23.9%（P<0.0001）。端粒长度与年龄呈负相关（对照组 R=-0.17，P=0.002；病例组 R=-0.15，P=0.001）、体重对数（对照组 R=-0.13，P=0.017；病例组 R=-0.16，P=0.0004）和身高（对照组 R=-0.15，P=0.008；病例组 R=-0.17，P=0.0002）。在病例组和对照组以及总体中，男孩和女孩的平均 LTL 均无显著差异。
肥胖女孩和男孩的白细胞端粒明显短于非肥胖者，这一发现突出了早发性肥胖对未来健康的潜在有害影响。
