Association of telomere length in peripheral blood leukocytes with the
presence of atrial fibrillation in elderly male
Abstract
Objective: Telomeres gradually shorten and the incidence of atrial
fibrillation (AF) gradually increases with age. However, the association
of telomere length with AF is still controversial. This study aims to
determine the correlation between the leukocyte telomere length (LTL)
and the presence of AF. Methods: This study recruited 96 AF male
patients and 97 healthy male controls (aged ≥60 years) Anthropometric,
clinical and laboratory analysis were performed on all subjects. Blood
LTL was detected by quantitative real-time PCR assay. PGC-1α
concentration was evaluated by ELISA method. The association between LTL
and AF was analyzed by simple and multivariate logistic regression.
Results: LTL in AF patients was significantly shorter than controls (P
< 0.001). Logistic regression analysis confirmed that LTL was
inversely associated with the presence of AF (OR 0.428, 95% confidence
interval [CI]: 0.268-0.684; P < 0.001). Furthermore, we
conducted a subgroup analysis of different ages and different types of
AF and found that LTL was negatively correlated with age (r = -0.148, P
= 0.040), and there was no statistical difference among different types
of AF. We found that the telomere-associated molecule serum PGC-1α
concentration was also negatively related to AF (OR 0.991, 95% CI:
0.985-0.997; P = 0.004) . Conclusion: LTL and serum PGC-1α concentration
are inversely correlated with the presence of AF in elderly male.