Association Between Leukocyte Telomere Length and the Risk of Incident Atrial Fibrillation: The Framingham Heart Study.

ABSTRACT: Advancing age is a prominent risk factor for atrial fibrillation (AF). Shorter telomere length is a biomarker of biological aging, but the link between shorter telomere length and increased risk of AF remains unclear. We examined the association between shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and incident AF. We included AF-free participants from the observational Framingham Heart Study Offspring cohort from 1995 to 1998, who had LTL measurements. We examined the association between baseline LTL and incident AF with multivariable Cox models adjusted for age, sex, current smoking, height, weight, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, use of antihypertensive medication, diabetes mellitus, history of myocardial infarction, and history of heart failure. The study sample comprised 1143 AF-free

SUBMITTER: Staerk L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5721755 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature