title: Association of leukocyte telomere length with echocardiographic left ventricular mass: the Framingham heart study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) decreases over the adult life course owing to the cumulative burden of oxidative stress, inflammation, and exposure to vascular risk factors. Left ventricular (LV) mass is a biomarker of long-standing exposure to cardiovascular disease risk factors. We hypothesized that LTL is related inversely to LV mass.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We related LTL (measured by Southern blot analysis) to echocardiographic LV mass and its components (LV diastolic dimension and LV wall thickness) in 850 Framingham Heart Study participants (mean age 58 years, 58% women) using multivariable linear regression with adjustment for age, sex, height, weight, systolic blood pressure, hypertension treatment, and smoking. Overall, multivariable-adjusted LTL was positively related to LV mass (beta-coefficient per SD increase 0.072; P=0.001), LV wall thickness (beta=0.053; P=0.01), and LV diastolic dimension (beta=0.035; P=0.09). We observed effect modification by hypertension status (P for interaction=0.02 for LV mass); LTL was more strongly associated with LV mass and LV wall thickness in individuals with hypertension (beta-coefficient per SD increment of 0.10 and 0.08, respectively; P<0.01 for both). Participants with hypertension who were in the top quartile of LV mass had LTL that was 250 base pairs longer than those in the lowest quartile (P for trend across quartiles=0.009).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In contrast to our expectation, in the present community-based sample, LTL was positively associated with LV mass and wall thickness, especially so in participants with hypertension. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that longer LTL may be a marker of propensity to LV hypertrophy.
authors.affiliation: Framingham Heart Study, 73 Mt Wayte Ave, Suite 2, Framingham, MA 01702-5827, USA. vasan@bu.edu
authors.forename: Ramachandran S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Vasan
authors.forename: Serkalem
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Demissie
authors.forename: Masayuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: L Adrienne
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Cupples
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: White
authors.forename: Jeffrey P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Gardner
authors.forename: Xiaogian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Levy
authors.forename: Emelia J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Benjamin
authors.forename: Abraham
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aviv
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004452:Echocardiography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology*; D017379:Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D007962:Leukocytes / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008404:Massachusetts / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D018384:Oxidative Stress; D012307:Risk Factors; D016615:Telomere / Q000235:genetics*