Association of Short-term Change in Leukocyte Telomere Length With Cortical Thickness and Outcomes of Mental Training Among Healthy Adults

Abstract

Key PointsQuestionIs naturally occurring short-term change in leukocyte telomere length related to structural plasticity of the brain, and can telomere length be influenced through mental training?FindingsIn this randomized clinical trial of 298 healthy adults, the mental training intervention did not affect leukocyte telomere length. Naturally occurring change in leukocyte telomere length over 3 consecutive 3-month intervals was significantly associated with cortical thickness change in the left precuneus extending to the posterior cingulate cortex.MeaningThis study provides the first evidence to date for an association between short-term change in leukocyte telomere length and brain structure, suggesting that these processes may be mechanistically linked; the mental training used did not influence leukocyte telomere length of healthy, middle-aged adults.

Oxidative stress, telomeres and cellular senescence: What non-drug interventions might break the link?

“…The studies were generally small and heterogeneous with respect to the age and health characteristics of the participants, as well as the duration of the interventions. The majority lasted for less than a year [62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72], while four trials were conducted for a year or more [73][74][75][76][77]. In all of them telomere length was determined in either leukocytes or PBMC before and after the intervention.…”

The effects of meditation on length of telomeres in healthy individuals: A systematic review

“…Through screening titles and the abstracts against the pre-set inclusion criteria, 134 full text articles were selected for review-in-detail. Review yielded only ve peer-reviewed, full text articles: three CCS [35,36,37](30) and two RCTs [31,30] which met the full eligibility criteria. PRISMA checklist and the list of excluded publications and reasons for exclusion are provided in Appendix 1 (supplementary le 1) and 2 (supplementary le 2) respectively.…”

“…Male participants comprised 40.43% out of the total sample. Participants were recruited from Durham and Orange County of North Carolina [30] and Berlin and Leipzig [31] with a mean age of 46.7 years.…”

“…One of the RCTs had used two types of meditation intervention groups: mindfulness meditation and loving kindness meditation and compared them with a monitoring waitlist control group [30]. The other RCT had used three different meditation intervention groups: the presence (breathing meditation technique with body-scan meditation technique), affect (loving-kindness meditation technique with affect dyad) and perspective (observing thought meditation technique with perspective dyad) and compared with a control group without any training [31]. All participants received 12 weeks of meditation training with a mean of 1.5 hours small group sessions and daily practice.…”

“…However, the evidence of these analyses is in uenced by the heterogeneous study populations and combined interventions where changes in TL may be in uenced by other stress relieving activities or the presence of disease conditions which themselves may affect the process of telomere shortening. Further, novel data from interventional studies, describing the effects of meditation on TL have been recently published [30,31]. Therefore, a clear understanding of changes in TL conferred by meditation based practices in otherwise healthy persons would not only add to the knowledge on cellular aging and senescence but also strengthen the scienti c basis of use of these complimentary approaches in the management of many chronic and in ammatory disease conditions.…”