Telomere length in Parkinson's disease: A meta-analysis

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common and severe movement disorder. Differences in telomere length (TL) have been reported as possible risk factors for several neuropsychiatric disorders, including PD. Results from published studies for TL in PD are inconsistent, highlighting the need for a meta-analysis. In the current work, a meta-analysis of published studies for TL in PD was carried out. PubMed, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases were used to identify relevant articles that reported TL in groups of PD patients and controls. A random-effects model was used for meta-analytical procedures. The meta-analysis included eight primary studies, derived from populations of European and Asian descent, and did not show a significant difference in TL between 956 PD patients and 1284 controls (p value: 0.246). Our results show that there is no consistent evidence of shorter telomeres in PD patients and suggest the importance of future studies on TL and PD that analyze other populations and also include assessment of TL from different brain regions.

Evaluation of oxidative stress mechanisms and the effects of phytotherapic extracts on Parkinson's diseaseDrosophila PINK1B9model

“…Several studies have investigated TL as a possible biomarker for PD. In this respect, it has been recently shown that there is no consistent evidence of shorter telomeres in PD (13). Unexpectedly, we found that PINK1 B9 mutants had elongated HTT arrays (increased copy number of TART and TAHRE) compared with WT Oregon-R.…”

“…In fact, oxidative stress accelerates telomere shortening, and antioxidants can reverse this phenotype (8). Although telomere length (TL) has often been speculated as a prognostic factor for various diseases, including PD, it remains unclear whether the TL shows any correlation to pathologic state (9)(10)(11)(12)(13).…”

Telomeres as integrative markers of exposure to stress and adversity: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Note that we have reversed the direction of our correlations compared to figure 3 where this is necessary for the comparison. TL, telomere length; SMD, standardized mean difference; OR, odds ratio; d , Cohen's d ; r , correlation coefficient.exposure categoryspecialist meta-analysis findingspresent findingscardiovascular diseasesignificant association between CVD and short TL, OR = 1.54 (1.30, 1.83) [12]significant negative correlation between CVD and TL, r = −0.13 (−0.23, −0.02)diabetessignificant association between diabetes and short TL, OR = 1.29 (1.11, 1.50) [13]significant negative correlation between diabetes and TL, r = −0.28 (−0.41, −0.15)Parkinson's diseaseno significant association between TL and disease, SMD = 0.36 (−0.25, 0.96) [14]no significant association between TL and disease, r = 0.09 (−0.26, 0.44)sleep apnoeasignificantly shorter TL in sleep apnoea, SMD = −0.03 (−0.06, −0.00) [15]association between TL and disease negative but not significant r = −0.07 (−0.27, 0.13)anxietysignificantly shorter TL in anxiety disorders, SMD = −0.53 (−1.05, −0.01) [16]significantly shorter TL in anxiety disorders, r = −0.05 (−0.08, −0.01)depressionsignificantly shorter TL in depressive disorders, SMD = −0.55 (−0.92, −0.18) [16]; d = −0.21 (−0.29, −0.12) [35]; r = −0.12 (−0.17, −0.07) [36]significantly shorter TL in depressive disorders, r = −0.12 (−0.20, −0.04), became marginally non-significant in reduced datasetPTSDsignificantly shorter TL in PTSD, SMD = −1.27 (−2.12, −0.43) [16]significantly shorter TL in PTSD, r = −0.17 (−0.31, −0.03); became non-significant in reduced datasetschizophreniano significant association between TL and psychosis/schizophrenia, SMD = −0.2 (−0.68, 0.21) [16]; SMD = 0.34 (0.77, 154) [37]significantly shorter TL in paranoid schizophrenia compared to controls SMD = −0.48 (−0.94, −0.03) [38]significant association between TL and schizophrenia, r = −0.30 (−0.50, −0.10); became non-significant in reduced datasetsmokingsmokers significantly shorter TL than non-smokers, SMD = −0.17 (−0.24, −0.09) [17]…”

Telomeres as integrative markers of exposure to stress and adversity: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…In the human literature, telomeres have been studied in association with a wide range of exposure variables, including psychological stress [5], psychiatric illness [6], socioeconomic status [7], environmental pollutants [8], nutrition [9], smoking [10] and physical activity [11]. In several of these cases, the number of studies is sufficient that meta-analyses have appeared [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], often finding that telomere length is associated with the exposure, though weakly and variably. Reviewing the associations between telomeres and different exposures separately is appropriate to answer questions about that particular exposure.…”