Association of shorter leukocyte telomere repeat length with dementia and mortality.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Shortening of chromosomal telomeres is a consequence of cell division and is a biological factor related to cellular aging and potentially to more rapid organismal biological aging.

Objective

To determine whether shorter telomere length (TL), as measured in human blood samples, is associated with the development of Alzheimer disease and mortality.

Design

We studied available stored leukocyte DNA from a community-based study of aging using realtime polymerase chain reaction analysis to determine mean TL in our modification of a method measuring the ratio of telomere sequence to single-copy gene sequence.

Setting

A multiethnic community-based study of aging and dementia.

Participants

One thousand nine hundred eighty-three subjects 65 years or ol

SUBMITTER: Honig LS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3622729 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature