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Smoking does not accelerate leucocyte telomere attrition: A meta-analysis of 18 longitudinal cohorts

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Melissa BatesonORCiD, Dr Carmen Martin-RuizORCiD, Gillian Pepper, Professor Thomas von Zglinicki, Professor Daniel Nettle

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Abstract

© 2019 The Authors.Smoking is associated with shorter leucocyte telomere length (LTL), a biomarker of increased morbidity and reduced longevity. This association is widely interpreted as evidence that smoking causes accelerated LTL attrition in adulthood, but the evidence for this is inconsistent. We analysed the association between smoking and LTL dynamics in 18 longitudinal cohorts. The dataset included data from 12 579 adults (4678 current smokers and 7901 non-smokers) over a mean follow-up interval of 8.6 years. Meta-analysis confirmed a cross-sectional difference in LTL between smokers and non-smokers, with mean LTL 84.61 bp shorter in smokers (95% CI: 22.62 to 146.61). However, LTL attrition was only 0.51 bp yr-1 faster in smokers than in non-smokers (95% CI: -2.09 to 1.08), a difference that equates to only 1.32% of the estimated age-related loss of 38.33 bp yr-1. Assuming a linear effect of smoking, 167 years of smoking would be required to generate the observed cross-sectional difference in LTL. Therefore, the difference in LTL between smokers and non-smokers is extremely unlikely to be explained by a linear, causal effect of smoking. Selective adoption, whereby individuals with short telomeres are more likely to start smoking, needs to be considered as a more plausible explanation for the observed pattern of telomere dynamics.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Bateson M, Aviv A, Bendix L, Benetos A, Ben-Shlomo Y, Bojesen SE, Cooper C, Cooper R, Deary IJ, Hagg S, Harris SE, Kark JD, Kronenberg F, Kuh D, Labat C, Martin-Ruiz CM, Meyer C, Nordestgaard BG, Penninx BWJH, Pepper GV, Revesz D, Said MA, Starr JM, Syddall H, Thomson WM, Van Der Harst P, Whooley M, Von Zglinicki T, Willeit P, Zhan Y, Nettle D

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Royal Society Open Science

Year: 2019

Volume: 6

Issue: 6

Online publication date: 05/06/2019

Acceptance date: 03/05/2019

Date deposited: 15/07/2019

ISSN (electronic): 2054-5703

Publisher: Royal Society Publishing

URL: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.190420

DOI: 10.1098/rsos.190420

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