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Telomere length and P arkinson's disease in men: a nested case−control study

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Telomere shortening has been implicated in neurodegenerative disorders. However, available data on the association between telomere length and Parkinson's disease (PD) are inconclusive. METHODS: A nested case-control design was used amongst men participating in the prospective Physicians' Health Study. A large proportion of participants provided blood samples in 1997 and they were followed through 2010. Men with self-reported PD were age-matched to controls in a 1:2 ratio. Quantitative PCR was used to determine the telomere repeat copy number to single gene copy number ratio (TSR) in genomic DNA extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes. TSR was used as a measure for relative telomere length (RTL) in our analyses. Conditional logistic regression was used to determine the risk of PD associated with RTL. RESULTS: Data on RTL were available from 408 cases and 809 controls. Median TSR was shorter in controls than in cases (47.7 vs. 50.2; P = 0.02). The age-adjusted odds ratio (OR) for PD was 0.66 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.46-0.95; Ptrend over quartiles 0.02] comparing the lowest to the highest quartile. The pattern of association was unchanged when comparing RTL below versus above the median (age-adjusted OR 0.75; 95% CI 0.59-0.96). Associations were similar after additional adjustment for many covariates. CONCLUSION: Contrary to what was expected, in this large nested case-control study amongst men shorter telomeres were associated with reduced PD risk. Future research on the nature of this counterintuitive association is warranted.

Source: European Journal of Neurology

DOI: 10.1111/ene.12252

Authors: M. Schürks, J. Buring, R. Dushkes, J. M. Gaziano, R. Y. L. Zee, T. Kurth