Telomere Length as a Biomarker for Race-Related Health Disparities

Abstract

Disparities between the races have been well documented in health and disease in the USA. Recent studies show that telomere length, a marker of aging, is associated with obesity and obesity-related diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes. The current study aimed to evaluate the connection between telomere length ratio, blood pressure, and childhood obesity. The telomere length ratio was measured in 127 children from both European American (EA) and African American (AA) children, aged 6–10 years old. AA children had a significantly high relative telomere to the single copy gene (T/S) ratio compared to EA children. There was no significant difference in the T/S ratio between normal weight (NW) and overweight/obese (OW/OB) groups of either race. Blood pressure was significantly elevated in AA children with respect to EA children. Hierarchical regression analysis adjusted for race, gender, and age expressed a significant relationship between the T/S ratio and diastolic pressure. Low T/S ratio participants showed a significant increase in systolic pressure, while a high T/S ratio group showed an increase in diastolic pressure and heart rate of AA children. In conclusion, our findings show that AA children have high T/S ratio compared to EA children. The high T/S ratio is negatively associated with diastolic pressure.

Telomere Length and Pediatric Obesity: A Review

“…Fourteen studies assessed the TL in children and adolescents who were either overweight or obese [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. I was involved in 5 of the studies.…”

“…Most of the studies included adolescents (age ≥12years); there were only three studies which did not include them [ 22 , 29 , 31 ]. The distribution of boys and girls was similar in all the studies, at around 50%, and was not detailed in 3 of them [ 22 , 29 , 35 ]. In 3 studies, males were less than 50% (36% to 39%) [ 32 , 33 , 34 ].…”

“…Five Spanish studies used the Spanish standard data [ 25 , 26 , 28 , 33 , 34 ]. Three studies, which were American, used the CDC growth charts [ 27 , 29 , 35 ]. One study performed in Arabic subjects applied the Cole et al cut-off points [ 23 ].…”

“…In one of these studies, they measured telomere restriction fragments, and this was the study with the smallest sample of subjects [ 22 ]. In the other study, the subjects were from different origins: European, American and African-American, and the samples to measure TL were taken from saliva [ 35 ].…”

“…In particular, in this study, TL was diminished by 0.110 [ 30 ] with every increase in weight category (normal weight, overweight, obesity). In some studies, a difference in TL was found with respect to race, with African-Americans having longer TL than European-Americans [ 35 ]. The proportion of normal weight, overweight and obesity did not show significant differences with respect to race.…”