Shorter Telomeres May Suggest Cardiovascular Risk

March 30,  2012

Short telomeres may boost cardiovascular risk, suggests study.

The link between the protective ends of chromosomes, telomeres, and healthy aging continues to strengthen. Yet another study, this time from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, suggests that shorter telomeres are associated with poor cardiovascular health.

Presented at the American College of Cardiology 2012 Annual Scientific Session in March, the study followed over 5,000 people with poor cardiovascular health for 18 months and measured their telomere length as the study progressed. The researchers then assessed the risk of death from cardiovascular events by factoring in telomere length and other factors.

The results showed that having shorter telomeres was associated with older age, being male, smoking, and previous heart problems. Not all of these factors were definitive, however, as some of the associations were only modest. Where the researchers did find a strong link was between shortened telomeres and death from cardiovascular events—the shorter the telomeres, the higher the risk. This was consistently found across various age groups.

Now, genetic and environmental factors such as diabetes, high cholesterol, and smoking are already known to increase the risk for suffering from cardiovascular events. However, explains lead study researcher Christian T. Ruff, MD, MPH, in a press release, “Even when accounting for all of these other known risk factors, patients with short telomeres have an increased risk.”

The hope then is that one day telomere length may be helpful in a clinical setting in predicting cardiovascular events.

“In the future, we hope to identify clinical, biochemical and genetic characteristics that predict telomere shortening… to have the ability to determine if therapies and medications that impact these processes may delay telomere attrition [shortening] and lessen the risk of cardiovascular events in these patients,” Ruff said.

Recently, a long-term and large-scale study from the University of Copenhagen also established a link between telomere length and better cardiovascular health. In that study, individuals with the shortest telomeres were found to have a 50 percent increased risk for heart attack.

Reference: Press Release provided by Brigham and Women’s Hospital