TY - JOUR T1 - Telomere length in circulating leukocytes is associated with lung function and disease JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/09031936.00046213 SP - erj00462-2013 AU - Eva Albrecht AU - Elina Sillanpää AU - Stefan Karrasch AU - Alexessander Couto Alves AU - Veryan Codd AU - Iiris Hovatta AU - Jessica L Buxton AU - Christopher P Nelson AU - Linda Broer AU - Sara Hägg AU - Massimo Mangino AU - Gonneke Willemsen AU - Ida Surakka AU - Manuel AR Ferreira AU - Najaf Amin AU - Ben A Oostra AU - Heli M Bäckmand AU - Markku Peltonen AU - Seppo Sarna AU - Taina Rantanen AU - Sarianna Sipilä AU - Tellervo Korhonen AU - Pamela AF Madden AU - Christian Gieger AU - Rudolf A Jörres AU - Joachim Heinrich AU - Jürgen Behr AU - Rudolf M Huber AU - Annette Peters AU - Konstantin Strauch AU - H.-Erich Wichmann AU - Melanie Waldenberger AU - Alexandra IF Blakemore AU - Eco JC de Geus AU - Dale R Nyholt AU - Anjali K Henders AU - Päivi L Piirilä AU - Aila Rissanen AU - Patrik KE Magnusson AU - Ana Viñuela AU - Kirsi H Pietiläinen AU - Nicholas G Martin AU - Nancy L Pedersen AU - Dorret I Boomsma AU - Tim D Spector AU - Cornelia M van Duijn AU - Jaakko Kaprio AU - Nilesh J Samani AU - Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin AU - Holger Schulz Y1 - 2013/01/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/early/2013/11/27/09031936.00046213.abstract N2 - Several clinical studies suggest the involvement of premature aging processes in COPD. Using an epidemiological approach we studied whether accelerated aging indicated by telomere length, a marker of biological age, is associated with COPD and asthma, and whether intrinsic age-related processes contribute to the inter-individual variability of lung function.Our meta-analysis of 14 studies included 934 COPD cases with 15,846 controls defined according to GLI criteria (or 1,189 COPD cases according to GOLD), 2,834 asthma cases with 28,195 controls, and spirometric parameters (FEV1, FVC and FEV1/FVC) of 12,595 individuals. Associations with telomere length were tested by linear regression, adjusting for age, sex, and smoking status.We observed negative associations between telomere length and asthma (β= −0.0452, p=0.024) as well as COPD (β= −0.0982, p=0.001), with associations being stronger and more significant when using GLI in comparison to GOLD. In both diseases, effects were stronger in females compared to males. The investigation of spirometric indices showed positive associations between telomere length and FEV1 (p=1.07×10−7), FVC (p=2.07×10−5), and their ratio FEV1/FVC (p=5.27×10−3). The effect was somewhat weaker in apparently healthy subjects compared to COPD or asthma patients.Our results provide indirect evidence for the hypothesis that cellular senescence may contribute to the pathogenesis of COPD and asthma and that lung function may reflect biological aging primarily due to intrinsic processes which are likely to be aggravated in lung diseases. ER -