Faculty of Medicine, School of Medicine, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon.
Faculty of Medicine, Clinical Research Institute, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon.
Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2022 Aug 18;13:978747. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2022.978747. eCollection 2022.
Relative telomere length (RTL) predicts the development of many age-related diseases. Yet, few studies have evaluated their longitudinal effect on RTL. We investigated longitudinally the association between cardiometabolic risk factors and RTL.
This was a longitudinal study with a 5-year follow-up period, based on data collected in 2014 and 2019. Of 478 participants in 2014, 198 consented to be followed-up in 2019. The associations between RTL and risk factors were analyzed using t-test, ANOVA or simple linear regression as applicable.
RTL was significantly shortened after 5 years (P<0.001). Older age (P=0.018) and gender (P=0.05) were significantly associated with shorter RTL at follow-up. Higher baseline C-peptide correlated with shorter RTL (P=0.04) and shortening of RTL (P=0.03) after 5 years. Multivariate linear regression including both age and gender revealed a significant trend for C-peptide and change in RTL after 5 years (P=0.04). Interestingly, there was a trend of shorter RTL at follow-up with diabetes, though the findings were not statistically significant.
Higher C-peptide level contributes to telomere shortening over time, suggesting that metabolic dysregulation may play a role in early aging. Further understanding of this relationship and addressing high C-peptide levels can be important to prevent premature aging.
端粒相对长度（RTL）可预测许多与年龄相关的疾病的发生。然而，很少有研究评估其对 RTL 的纵向影响。我们纵向研究了心血管代谢危险因素与 RTL 之间的关系。
这是一项具有 5 年随访期的纵向研究，基于 2014 年和 2019 年收集的数据。在 2014 年的 478 名参与者中，有 198 名同意在 2019 年进行随访。使用 t 检验、方差分析或简单线性回归分析 RTL 与危险因素之间的相关性。
5 年后 RTL 明显缩短（P<0.001）。年龄较大（P=0.018）和性别（P=0.05）与随访时 RTL 较短显著相关。较高的基线 C 肽与较短的 RTL（P=0.04）和 5 年后 RTL 缩短（P=0.03）相关。包括年龄和性别在内的多元线性回归显示，C 肽和 5 年后 RTL 变化呈显著趋势（P=0.04）。有趣的是，尽管糖尿病的结果没有统计学意义，但存在随访时 RTL 较短的趋势。
较高的 C 肽水平与端粒随时间缩短有关，这表明代谢失调可能在早期衰老中起作用。进一步了解这种关系并解决高 C 肽水平问题对于预防过早衰老可能很重要。
