Eriksson Johan G, Guzzardi Maria-Angela, Iozzo Patricia, Kajantie Eero, Kautiainen Hannu, Salonen Minna K
Department of Chronic Disease Prevention, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland;
Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2017 Jan;105(1):144-150. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.116.130468. Epub 2016 Nov 23.
Telomere length and telomere shortening are associated with age-related health outcomes. Only a few studies have been able to longitudinally report on factors that are associated with changes in telomere length in an aging population.
We studied the longitudinal relation between telomere length, the change in telomere length, and circulating amino acids.
A total of 812 subjects from the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study (born from 1934 to 1944), who underwent 3 clinical visits during a 10-y interval that included measurements of cardiometabolic risk factors, were included in the study. Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) was measured with the use of quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Circulating branched-chain and aromatic amino acids (alanine, glycine, histidine, phenylalanine, leucine, isoleucine, valine, and tyrosine) were assessed with the use of high-throughput nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
The relative ± SD LTL at a mean age of 71 y was 0.79 ± 0.27 in men and 0.89 ± 0.35 in women (P < 0.001). Of the studied amino acids, the strongest inverse association was observed between the phenylalanine concentration that was measured 5 y earlier and the LTL. This finding was significant in men (P = 0.021) and remained significant after adjustment for multiple comparisons, but it was not significant in women (P = 0.39). Longitudinally, the change in LTL over 10 y was inversely associated with the phenylalanine concentration in men (P = 0.007) but not in women (P = 0.58) after adjustment for baseline LTL, age, smoking, and percentage of body fat.
The serum phenylalanine concentration is associated with telomere length and, therefore, potentially with the aging process. Because the associations reported are observational, no conclusions can be made regarding causality. Our findings support the hypothesis that cellular pathways that regulate aging are sex specific.
端粒长度和端粒缩短与年龄相关的健康结果有关。仅有少数研究能够纵向报告与老年人群端粒长度变化相关的因素。
我们研究了端粒长度、端粒长度变化与循环氨基酸之间的纵向关系。
共有812名来自赫尔辛基出生队列研究（出生于1934年至1944年）的受试者纳入本研究，他们在10年的间隔内接受了3次临床访视，包括测量心血管代谢危险因素。使用定量实时聚合酶链反应测量白细胞端粒长度（LTL）。使用高通量核磁共振波谱评估循环支链和芳香族氨基酸（丙氨酸、甘氨酸、组氨酸、苯丙氨酸、亮氨酸、异亮氨酸、缬氨酸和酪氨酸）。
男性平均年龄71岁时的相对±标准差LTL为0.79±0.27，女性为0.89±0.35（P<0.001）。在研究的氨基酸中，观察到5年前测量的苯丙氨酸浓度与LTL之间存在最强的负相关。这一发现在男性中具有统计学意义（P=0.021），在进行多重比较调整后仍然显著，但在女性中不显著（P=0.39）。纵向来看，在调整基线LTL、年龄、吸烟和体脂百分比后，男性10年内LTL的变化与苯丙氨酸浓度呈负相关（P=0.007），而女性则无此相关性（P=0.58）。
血清苯丙氨酸浓度与端粒长度相关，因此可能与衰老过程有关。由于所报告的关联是观察性的，因此无法得出因果关系的结论。我们的研究结果支持这样的假设，即调节衰老的细胞途径具有性别特异性。
