The Relationship between Mean Telomere Length and Blood Pressure: Results from the National Health and Education National Surveys

Abstract

Background: The relationship between telomere length and blood pressure remains unclear. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between mean telomere length and blood pressure among US adults. Methods: Our study population was from the National Health and Education National Surveys (NHANES, 1999-2002). Mean telomere length were grouped by quartiles. The mean telomere length assay was performed by using the quantitative polymerase chain reaction method to measure leukocyte telomere length relative to standard reference DNA (also known as the telomere-to-single copy gene (T/S) ratio). Coefficients (betas) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for mean telomere length in association with blood pressure were estimated by using multivariate linear regression analysis, subgroup stratified and interaction tests. Results: There were total 5954 participants including 2911 men and 3043 women, mean age were 45.16 ± 17.26 years. After adjusting for potential confounders a non-linear relationship was detected between mean telomere length and systolic and diabolic blood pressure, which had an inflection point of 0.79 T/S ratio and 1.02 T/S ratio, respectively. Subgroup analysis in participants without antihypertensive drugs showed that mean telomere length had a negative correlation with SBP(β=-6.44, 95%CI:-7.80, -5.08,P<0.001), and the P value for the interaction was 0.0212. Conclusions: Our findings revealed that the relationship between mean telomere length and blood pressure is non-linear. The implications of this correlation needed further investigation. Funding: During the process of data analysis , writing and submission of the article, this work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (No. 2015A030313660), the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou (No. 201604020143, No.201604020018, No. 201510010254, and No. 201803040012), the Medical Science and Technology Research Fund of Guangdong Province (No. B2018023) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017FYC1307603, No. 2016YFC1301305, and No. 2017YFC0909303). Declaration of Interest: The other authors report no conflicts. Ethical Approval: The survey protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All participants gave written informed consent.