Social-demographics, health behaviors, and telomere length in the Mexican American Mano a Mano Cohort
Year: 2017
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: // Hua Zhao 1 , Lixia Han 1 , David Chang 1 , Yuanqing Ye 1 , Jie Shen 1 , Carrie R. Daniel 1 , Jian Gu 1 , Wong-Ho Chow 1 and Xifeng Wu 1 1 Department of Epidemiology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA Correspondence to: Hua Zhao, email: // Keywords : telomere length, cancer risk, lifestyle factors, social context, Gerotarget Received : May 10, 2017 Accepted : July 26, 2017 Published : August 03, 2017 Abstract In the current study, we examined cross-sectional associations among social-demographics, lifestyle behaviors, and relative telomere length (RTL) in peripheral blood leukocytes, as well as longitudinal relationships among major chronic diseases, weight gain, and RTL, among 12,792 Mexican Americans aged 20 to 85 years in the Mano-A-Mano, the Mexican American Cohort. As expected, RTL was inversely correlated with age ( ρ =-0.15, ρ <0.001). In the multivariate analysis, we found that RTL was positively correlated with levels of education ( ρ =0.021), self-insurance ( ρ =0.041), body mass index (BMI) ( ρ <0.001), and sleeping time per day ( ρ for trend<0.001), and RTL was inversely correlated with sitting time per day ( ρ for trend =0.001). In longitudinal analysis, we found that longer RTL was modestly but positively associated with increased risks of overall cancer (adjusted hazard ratio (adj.HR)=1.05, 95% conference interval (95%CI)=1.02-1.09). In quartile analysis, 4 th quartile (longest RTL) was associated with 1.53-fold increased risk of overall cancer (adj.HR=1.53, 95%CI=1.11-2.10), compared to 1 st quartile (shortest RTL). RTL was reversely associated with the risk of type-2 diabetes (adj.HR=0.89, 95%CI=0.82-0.94). In quartile analysis, 4 th quartile (longest RTL) was associated with 48% decreased risk of typle-2 diabetes (adj.HR=0.52, 95%CI=0.32-0.70), compared to 1 st quartile (shortest RTL). In addition, longer RTL was a positive predictor of at least 10% weight gain (adj.HR=1.03, 95%CI=1.00-1.05). In summary, our results in Mexican Americans support the notion that telomere length is a biological mechanism by which social demographics and health behaviors “get under the skin” to affect health.
Source: Oncotarget
Institution: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Language: English
Subfield: Physiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2744509605