Smoking does not accelerate leucocyte telomere attrition: a meta-analysis of 18 longitudinal cohorts

Bateson, Melissa, Aviv, Abraham, Bendix, Laila, Benetos, Athanase, Ben-Shlomo, Yoav, Bojesen, Stig E., Cooper, Cyrus, Cooper, Rachel, Deary, Ian J., Hägg, Sara, Harris, Sarah E., Kark, Jeremy D., Kronenberg, Florian, Kuh, Diana, Labat, Carlos, Martin-Ruiz, Carmen M., Meyer, Craig, Nordestgaard, Børge G., Penninx, Brenda W. J. H., Pepper, Gillian, Révész, Dóra, Said, M. Abdullah, Starr, John M., Syddall, Holly, Thomson, William Murray, van der Harst, Pim, Whooley, Mary, von Zglinicki, Thomas, Willeit, Peter, Zhan, Yiqiang and Nettle, Daniel (2019) Smoking does not accelerate leucocyte telomere attrition: a meta-analysis of 18 longitudinal cohorts. Royal Society Open Science, 6 (6). p. 190420. ISSN 2054-5703

[img]
Preview
Text
Bateson et al - Smoking does not accelerate leucocyte telomere attrition OA.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

Download (974kB) | Preview
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.190420

Abstract

Smoking is associated with shorter leucocyte telomere length (LTL), a biomarker of increased morbidity and reduced longevity. This association is widely interpreted as evidence that smoking causes accelerated LTL attrition in adulthood, but the evidence for this is inconsistent. We analysed the association between smoking and LTL dynamics in 18 longitudinal cohorts. The dataset included data from 12 579 adults (4678 current smokers and 7901 non-smokers) over a mean follow-up interval of 8.6 years. Meta-analysis confirmed a cross-sectional difference in LTL between smokers and non-smokers, with mean LTL 84.61 bp shorter in smokers (95% CI: 22.62 to 146.61). However, LTL attrition was only 0.51 bp yr−1 faster in smokers than in non-smokers (95% CI: −2.09 to 1.08), a difference that equates to only 1.32% of the estimated age-related loss of 38.33 bp yr−1. Assuming a linear effect of smoking, 167 years of smoking would be required to generate the observed cross-sectional difference in LTL. Therefore, the difference in LTL between smokers and non-smokers is extremely unlikely to be explained by a linear, causal effect of smoking. Selective adoption, whereby individuals with short telomeres are more likely to start smoking, needs to be considered as a more plausible explanation for the observed pattern of telomere dynamics.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: biological age, telomere length, telomere attrition, smoking, longitudinal
Subjects: C400 Genetics
Department: Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User: Paul Burns
Date Deposited: 21 Jun 2019 09:40
Last Modified: 01 Aug 2021 11:21
URI: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/39766

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics