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Research Paper|Volume 6, Issue 5|pp 414—427

Short leukocyte telomere length predicts incidence and progression of carotid atherosclerosis in American Indians: The Strong Heart Family Study

Shufeng Chen1,2, Jue Lin3, Tet Matsuguchi3, Elizabeth Blackburn3, Fawn Yeh4, Lyle G. Best5, Richard B. Devereux6, Elisa T. Lee4, Barbara V. Howard7, Mary J. Roman6, Jinying Zhao1
  • 1Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
  • 2Department of Evidence Based Medicine and Division of Population Genetics, State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease, Cardiovascular Institute and Fuwai Hospital, National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
  • 3Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
  • 4Center for American Indian Health Research, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA
  • 5Missouri Breaks Industries Research Inc, Timber Lake, SD 57656, USA
  • 6Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY 10065, USA
  • 7Medstar Research Institute and Georgetown and Howard Universities Centers for Translational Sciences, Washington, DC 20007, USA
Received: April 14, 2014Accepted: May 23, 2014Published: May 28, 2014
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.100671

Copyright: © 2014 Chen et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Short leukocyte telomere length (LTL) has been associated with atherosclerosis in cross-sectional studies, but the prospective relationship between telomere shortening and risk of developing carotid atherosclerosis has not been well-established. This study examines whether LTL at baseline predicts incidence and progression of carotid atherosclerosis in American Indians in the Strong Heart Study. The analysis included 2,819 participants who were free of overt cardiovascular disease at baseline (2001-2003) and were followed through the end of 2006-2009 (average 5.5-yr follow-up). Discrete atherosclerotic plaque was defined as focal protrusion with an arterial wall thickness ≥50% the surrounding wall. Carotid progression was defined as having a higher plaque score at the end of study follow-up compared to baseline. Associations of LTL with incidence and progression of carotid plaque were examined using Cox proportional hazard regression, adjusting for standard coronary risk factors. Compared to participants in the highest LTL tertile, those in the lowest tertile had significantly elevated risk for both incident plaque (HR, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.09–2.03) and plaque progression (HR, 1.61; 95% CI, 1.26–2.07). Our results provide initial evidence for a potential prognostic utility of LTL in risk prediction for atherosclerosis.