Telomere length and age-at-menopause in the US

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Maturitas
• Personal Author:
  Shenassa, Edmond D. ; Rossen, Lauren M.
• Description:
  Objectives
  
  Age-at-menopause and leukocyte telomere length (LTL) are both associated with biologic aging. Therefore, it would be reasonable to hypothesize that LTL may also serve as a marker for reproductive aging as shorter LTL may be associated with earlier age-at-menopause.
  
  Methods
  
  We analyzed data from 799 post-menopausal (ages 41–85) participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999–2002), a nationally representative sample of U.S. women.
  
  Results
  
  Controlling for behavioral, socio-demographic, and health-related determinants of menopause, we found that among non-Hispanic white women, an increase of one standard deviation in LTL was associated with a 0.43 year higher reported age-at-menopause. Among Mexican–Americans, an increase of one standard deviation in LTL was associated with a 1.56 year earlier menopause. There was no significant association between LTL and age-at-menopause among non-Hispanic black women.
  
  Conclusions
  
  Our main finding is evidence of a strong interaction by race/ethnicity in the association between LTL and age-at-menopause. This evidence does not support the hypothesis that shorter LTL is a predictor of earlier age-at-menopause, as the magnitude and direction of the associations between LTL and age-at-menopause varied across racial/ethnic groups.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Adult Aged Aged, 80 And Over Age Factors Biomarkers Cross-Sectional Studies Ethnicity Female Humans Leukocytes Menopause Middle Aged Nutrition Surveys Telomere United States

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• Keywords:
  Reproductive Aging Telomeres
• Source:
  Maturitas. 82(2):215-221
• Pubmed ID:
  26297686
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC4669569
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/ ; R24 HD041041/HD/NICHD NIH HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  82
• Issue:
  2
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:3868753e52face21915717baa721cd854d06b693e8dd098d24e506ea9489c757
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/36573/cdc_36573_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 497.19 KB ]