Socioeconomic status, health behavior, and leukocyte telomere length in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999–2002

Needham, Belinda L.; Adler, Nancy E.; Gregorich, Steven E.; Rehkopf, David H.; Lin, Jue; Blackburn, Elizabeth H.; Epel, Elissa S.

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.02.023

Cited by 271 publications

(284 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…Finally, our results in the sample with all participants pooled across race and ethnicity were similar to those of the predominant racial/ ethnicity group, non-Hispanic white participants, whereas results in non-Hispanic black and Hispanic participants were nonsignificant, perhaps limited by small sample sizes within each group. Considering these results and the racial and ethnic differences in telomere length and in exposures to adverse experiences that exist in our and other studies (66)(67)(68)(69), we propose future studies with larger samples within minority communities to confirm or refute the uniqueness of our results to non-Hispanic whites.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Lifespan adversity and later adulthood telomere length in the nationally representative US Health and Retirement Study

Puterman

Gemmill

Karasek

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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140

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Stress over the lifespan is thought to promote accelerated aging and early disease. Telomere length is a marker of cell aging that appears to be one mediator of this relationship. Telomere length is associated with early adversity and with chronic stressors in adulthood in many studies. Although cumulative lifespan adversity should have bigger impacts than single events, it is also possible that adversity in childhood has larger effects on later life health than adult stressors, as suggested by models of biological embedding in early life. No studies have examined the individual vs. cumulative effects of childhood and adulthood adversities on adult telomere length. Here, we examined the relationship between cumulative childhood and adulthood adversity, adding up a range of severe financial, traumatic, and social exposures, as well as comparing them to each other, in relation to salivary telomere length. We examined 4,598 men and women from the US Health and Retirement Study. Single adversities tended to have nonsignificant relations with telomere length. In adjusted models, lifetime cumulative adversity predicted 6% greater odds of shorter telomere length. This result was mainly due to childhood adversity. In adjusted models for cumulative childhood adversity, the occurrence of each additional childhood event predicted 11% increased odds of having short telomeres. This result appeared mainly because of social/traumatic exposures rather than financial exposures. This study suggests that the shadow of childhood adversity may reach far into later adulthood in part through cellular aging. cellular aging | telomeres | lifespan adversity | childhood adversity A ging cells play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of noncommunicable diseases, and telomere shortening in cells plays a part of this aging process (1, 2). Telomeres are DNAprotein caps at the ends of chromosomes that protect genetic material from degradation, and their lengths indicate cellular aging (2, 3). Experiments in rodents implicate shortened telomeres and lower activity of telomerase, the enzyme that lengthens telomeres, as causes of mitochondrial and tissue damage associated with disease pathogenesis (4-6).Telomere length is linked cross-sectionally and prospectively with human disease states in many studies. A recent meta-analysis suggests that individuals with observed short leukocyte telomeres are at an ∼80% increased risk of concurrent reports of cardiovascular disease and an ∼40% increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the future (7). Other recent meta-analyses support the concurrent associations between short telomeres and diabetes (8) and several cancers (9, 10). Several studies indicate that short telomeres from varied sources, including leukocytes and saliva, are related to early mortality (11-17), including a study with >60,000 adults (18), although null studies also exist (19)(20)(21)(22).Although these studies suggest that telomere length plays a role in disease, they are observational, and studies directly linking genetics...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Lifespan adversity and later adulthood telomere length in the nationally representative US Health and Retirement Study

Puterman

Gemmill

Karasek

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

140

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“…This is important in that most TL research uses blood, which is more difficult to collect than saliva. That saliva DNA is a valid indicator of TL makes it easier and less expensive for researchers to collect samples of TL at multiple points in time and thereby to examine how changes in the social environment are associated with changes in TL (8,9,17,26). A second methodological contribution is the use of prospective data to measure children's environmental exposures in real time.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research suggests several possible behavioral mediators of the negative association between stress and TL, including smoking, mental illness (particularly depression), caregiver stress, and obesity (23)(24)(25). Considering the strong association between social deprivation and these mediators, it is not surprising that some measures of social standing and social deprivation have also been found to be associated with TL (8,9,17,26).…”

Section: Disadvantaged Social Environments and Telomere Lengthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social disadvantage, genetic sensitivity, and children’s telomere length

Mitchell

Hobcraft

McLanahan

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

241

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Significance This paper makes two contributions to research on the link between the social environment and health. Using data from a birth cohort study, we show that, among African American boys, those who grow up in highly disadvantaged environments have shorter telomeres (at age 9) than boys who grow up in highly advantaged environments. We also find that the association between the social environment and telomere length (TL) is moderated by genetic variation within the serotonin and dopamine pathways. Boys with the highest genetic sensitivity scores had the shortest TL when exposed to disadvantaged environments and the longest TL when exposed to advantaged environments. To our knowledge, this report is the first to document a gene–social environment interaction for TL, a biomarker of stress exposure.

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“…BMI was calculated from weight and height measured at the time of each survey. Leukocyte telomere length was measured using the PCR-based method in all three samples (Cawthon 2002;Needham et al 2013;Rehkopf et al 2014). Further details on the measurement of each biomarker in each survey are described elsewhere (NCHS 1999;Rosero-Bixby and Dow 2012;Weinstein, Vaupel, Wachter and Weir 2008).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A cross-national comparison of 12 biomarkers finds no universal biomarkers of aging among individuals aged 60 and older

Rehkopf¹,

Rosero-Bixby²,

Dow³

2017

Populationyearbook

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There is uncertainty about whether biological and anthropometric measures that are clinical risk factors for disease are universally associated with chronological age, or whether these correlations vary depending on the social and economic context. The answer to this question has implications for the malleability of biological aging. To examine this issue, we use population-based data on individuals aged 60 and older from the Costa Rican Study on Longevity and Healthy Aging, and temporally consistent data from the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the United States Health and Retirement Study. Our analysis focuses on 12 biomarkers that have been shown in the literature to have an association with age, and that occur prior to the clinical manifestation of disease. We find that there are few consistent patterns of association with age when these biomarkers are stratified by gender, country, and level of education. This result suggests that these measures of biological aging are highly context-dependent, and that none of the 12 biomarkers we examined are universal biomarkers of aging. Future research that investigates composite measures of biological age should test newly proposed measures across gender, social class, and country.

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Socioeconomic status, health behavior, and leukocyte telomere length in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999–2002

Cited by 271 publications

References 80 publications

Lifespan adversity and later adulthood telomere length in the nationally representative US Health and Retirement Study

Lifespan adversity and later adulthood telomere length in the nationally representative US Health and Retirement Study

Social disadvantage, genetic sensitivity, and children’s telomere length

A cross-national comparison of 12 biomarkers finds no universal biomarkers of aging among individuals aged 60 and older

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