The Effect of Alcohol on Telomere Length: A Systematic Review of Epidemiological Evidence and a Pilot Study during Pregnancy

Abstract

Several studies—albeit with still inconclusive and limited findings—began to focus on the effect of drinking alcohol on telomere length (TL). Here, we present results from a systematic review of these epidemiological studies to investigate the potential association between alcohol consumption, alcohol-related disorders, and TL. The analysis of fourteen studies—selected from PubMed, Medline, and Web of Science databases—showed that people with alcohol-related disorders exhibited shorter TL, but also that alcohol consumption per se did not appear to affect TL in the absence of alcohol abuse or dependence. Our work also revealed a lack of studies in the periconceptional period, raising the need for evaluating this potential relationship during pregnancy. To fill this gap, we conducted a pilot study using data and samples form the Mamma & Bambino cohort. We compared five non-smoking but drinking women with ten non-smoking and non-drinking women, matched for maternal age, gestational age at recruitment, pregestational body mass index, and fetal sex. Interestingly, we detected a significant difference when analyzing relative TL of leukocyte DNA of cord blood samples from newborns. In particular, newborns from drinking women exhibited shorter relative TL than those born from non-drinking women (p = 0.024). Although these findings appeared promising, further research should be encouraged to test any dose–response relationship, to adjust for the effect of other exposures, and to understand the molecular mechanisms involved.

Telomere Length and COVID-19 Outcomes: A Two-Sample Bidirectional Mendelian Randomization Study

“…The four remaining methods give more reliable results in the presence of horizontal pleiotropy, although at the cost of reduced statistical power; 2) To detect heterogeneity and possible horizontal pleiotropy, Cochran’s Q statistic, the intercept test, leave-one-out analysis, MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier analysis (MR-PRESSO) ( Verbanck et al, 2018 ) and funnel plot analysis were performed. 3) PhenoScanner ( Kamat et al, 2019 ) resulted in the removal of 2 SNPs from the original 20 SNPs of Li et al (18 SNP set) ( Supplementary Table S3 ), because the 2 SNPs were previously reported associations with three plausible confounders (BMI, smoking, and alcoholic drinks) at p < 5 × 10 –8 , which have been reported to impact the risk of shorter LTL and COVID-19 severity ( Valdes et al, 2005 ; Zhou et al, 2020 ; Maugeri et al, 2021 ). 4) We restricted our analysis to a subset of the 20 SNPs from Li et al used in primary analyses (12 SNP set) encoding components of the SHELTERIN complex, regulating telomere structure, or regulating the formation and activity of telomerase ( Li et al, 2020 ) ( Supplementary Table S3 ); 5) To avoid the possibility of insufficiently powered instruments, we included more instruments up to 52 SNPs associated with LTL ( Li et al, 2020 ) (52 SNP set) ( Supplementary Table S3 ) at a liberal significance level (ranging from p = 5 × 10 –8 to p = 1.03 × 10 –5 , equivalent to a false discovery rate of <0.05).…”

The Relationship between Telomere Length and Gestational Weight Gain: Findings from the Mamma & Bambino Cohort

“…Beyond anthropometric measures, our analysis considered several covariates that might affect GWG, telomere length and their relationship. At recruitment, demographics, socio-economic information and lifestyles were assessed by trained epidemiologists through structured questionnaires [ 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 69 , 70 , 71 ]. Maternal age and gestational ages at recruitment and at delivery were considered because of their potential effect on sampling and telomere length.…”

“…Biological samples included maternal blood obtained at recruitment and an aliquot of amniotic fluid from women who underwent amniocentesis. Full details on protocols of DNA extraction are reported elsewhere [ 67 , 71 ]. Genomic mlDNA was extracted from 200 μL of maternal blood, while cfDNA was extracted from the supernatant of amniotic fluid obtained after centrifugation.…”

Telomeres, aging and reproduction

“…Alcohol consumption disorders shorten adult LTL [101]. However, a metanalysis showed that alcohol consumption does not alter telomere length of the offspring, but rather, alcohol abuse or dependency does [44 ▪ ]. Cigarette smoking was associated with 9.7% shorter telomere length in newborns [102], or 3.9% [103], whereas secondhand exposure during childhood, did not associate with LTL in children [102].…”