Institute of Health & Society, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2012;7(7):e40116. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040116. Epub 2012 Jul 6.
Telomere length is emerging as a potential factor in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease. We investigated whether birth weight, infant growth, childhood cognition and adult height, as well as a range of lifestyle, socio-economic and educational factors, were associated with white blood cell telomere length at age 49-51 years.
The study included 318 members of the Newcastle Thousand Families Study, a prospectively followed birth cohort which includes all individuals born in Newcastle, England in May and June 1947, who attended for clinical examination at age 49-51 years, and had telomere length successfully measured using real-time PCR analyses of DNA extracted from peripheral blood mononuclear cells.
No association was found between birth weight and later telomere length. However, associations were seen with other factors from early life. Education level was the only predictor in males, while telomere length in females was associated with gestational age at birth, childhood growth and childhood IQ.
While these findings may be due to chance, in particular where differing associations were seen between males and females, they do provide evidence of early life associations with telomere length much later in life. Our findings of sex differences in the education association may reflect the sex differences in achieved education levels in this generation where few women went to university regardless of their intelligence. Our findings do not support the concept of telomere length being on the pathway between very early growth and later disease risk.
端粒长度作为心血管疾病发病机制的一个潜在因素正在逐渐显现。我们研究了出生体重、婴儿生长、儿童认知和成人身高，以及一系列生活方式、社会经济和教育因素，是否与 49-51 岁时的白细胞端粒长度有关。
本研究包括 318 名纽卡斯尔千个家庭研究的成员，这是一个前瞻性随访的出生队列，包括 1947 年 5 月和 6 月在英格兰纽卡斯尔出生的所有个体，他们在 49-51 岁时参加了临床检查，并成功地使用实时 PCR 分析从外周血单核细胞中提取的 DNA 测量了端粒长度。
出生体重与后来的端粒长度之间没有关联。然而，与生命早期的其他因素有关。教育水平是男性唯一的预测因素，而女性的端粒长度与出生时的胎龄、儿童期生长和儿童期智商有关。
虽然这些发现可能是偶然的，特别是在男性和女性之间存在不同的关联时，但它们确实提供了生命早期与生命后期端粒长度相关的证据。我们在教育关联中发现的性别差异可能反映了这一代人中实现的教育水平的性别差异，当时很少有女性上大学，无论她们的智力如何。我们的研究结果不支持端粒长度位于早期生长和以后疾病风险之间的途径的概念。
