Research Paper Volume 16, Issue 14 pp 11151—11161
Association between osteoporosis and the rate of telomere shortening
- 1 Department of Neurosurgery, Hanyang University Guri Hospital, Guri 11923, South Korea
- 2 Department of Neurology, Hanyang University Guri Hospital, Guri 11923, South Korea
- 3 Department of Translational Medicine, Hanyang University Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering, Seoul 04763, South Korea
- 4 Department of Neurology, Ewha Womans University College of Medicine, Seoul 07804, South Korea
- 5 Department of Neurology, Dong-A Medical Center, Dong-A University College of Medicine, Busan 49201, South Korea
- 6 Department of Neurology, Pusan National University Hospital, Pusan National University School of Medicine and Medical Research Institute, Busan 49241, South Korea
- 7 Department of Neurology, Eulji University Hospital, Eulji University School of Medicine, Daejeon 35233, South Korea
- 8 Department of Neurology, Konyang University College of Medicine, Daejeon 35365, Republic of Korea
- 9 Department of Neurology, Kangwon National University School of Medicine, Chuncheon 24341, South Korea
- 10 Department of Neurology, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine, Wonju 26426, South Korea
- 11 Department of Neurology, Inha University College of Medicine, Incheon 22332, South Korea
Received: February 20, 2024 Accepted: July 17, 2024 Published: July 25, 2024
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206034How to Cite
Copyright: © 2024 Han et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
A shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is reported to be associated with age-related diseases, including osteoporosis. Many studies have tried identifying the association between LTL and osteoporosis, although it remains controversial. This study aimed to determine whether osteoporosis is independently associated with LTL shortening in a prospective longitudinal cohort. The KBASE study is an independent multicenter prospective cohort in South Korea, which began in 2014. We compared the LTL values for each participant at baseline and over a 2-year follow-up period. Boxplots were used to demonstrate the differences in the change in LTL over a 2-year follow-up according to osteoporosis. Multivariable linear regression was conducted to identify whether osteoporosis is independently associated with the rate of telomere shortening. A total of 233 subjects (from 55 to 88 years) from the KBASE cohort were finally enrolled in the study. We observed that the LTL decreased by approximately 1.2 kbp over 2 years. While the LTL decreased as age increased, the rate of LTL shortening did not increase with age. Multivariable linear regression analysis indicated that only osteoporosis was independently associated with rapid LTL shortening over 2 years (B, -8.08; p = 0.038). We sought to identify an association between osteoporosis and LTL shortening in an independent prospective cohort. We found that participants with osteoporosis had significantly faster LTL shortening over 2 years than those without osteoporosis. We hope this study will help elucidate the underlying mechanisms in the relationship between LTL and osteoporosis in the future.
Abbreviations
AD: Alzheimer’s disease; BMD: Bone mineral density; CDR: Clinical dementia rating; GDS: Global dementia deterioration scale; KBASE: Korean Brain Aging Study for the Early Diagnosis and Prediction of Alzheimer’s Disease; LOWESS: Locally weighted scatterplot smoothing; LTL: Leukocyte telomere length; MRI: Magnetic resonance imaging; TNF: Tumor necrosis factor.