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    Annual Ambient Black Carbon Associated with Shorter Telomeres in Elderly Men: Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study

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    Date Issued
    2010-11
    Related DOI
    10.1289/ehp.0901831
    Author
    McCracken, John
    Baccarelli, Andrea
    Hoxha, Mirjam
    Dioni, Laura
    Melly, Steve
    Coull, Brent
    Suh, Helen
    Vokonas, Pantel
    Schwartz, Joel
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    Permanent Link
    https://hdl.handle.net/2144/2751
    Citation
    McCracken, John, Andrea Baccarelli, Mirjam Hoxha, Laura Dioni, Steve Melly, Brent Coull, Helen Suh, Pantel Vokonas, Joel Schwartz. "Annual Ambient Black Carbon Associated with Shorter Telomeres in Elderly Men: Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study" Environmental Health Perspectives 118(11): 1564-1570. (2010)
    Abstract
    BACKGROUND. Telomere length reflects biological age and is inversely associated with risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Ambient air pollution is associated with CVD, but its effect on telomere length is unknown. OBJECTIVE. We investigated whether ambient black carbon (BC), a marker for traffic-related particles, is associated with telomere length in the Normative Aging Study (NAS). METHODS. Among 165 never-smoking men from the NAS, leukocyte telomere length (LTL) was measured repeatedly approximately every 3 years from 1999 through 2006 using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). BC concentration at their residences during the year before each LTL measurement was estimated based on a spatiotemporal model calibrated with BC measurements from 82 locations within the study area. RESULTS. The median [interquartile range (IQR)] annual moving-average BC concentration was 0.32 (0.20-0.45) μg/m^3. LTL, expressed as population-standardized ratio of telomere repeat to single-copy gene copy numbers, had a geometric mean (geometric SD) of 1.25 (1.42). We used linear mixed-effects models including random subject intercepts and adjusted for several potential confounders. We used inverse probability of response weighting to adjust for potential selection bias due to loss to follow-up. An IQR increase in annual BC (0.25 μg/m3) was associated with a 7.6% decrease (95% confidence interval, -12.8 to -2.1) in LTL. We found evidence of effect modification, with a stronger association among subjects ≥ 75 years of age compared with younger participants (p = 0.050) and statin medications appearing protective of the effects of BC on LTL (p = 0.050). CONCLUSIONS. Telomere attrition, linked to biological aging, may be associated with long-term exposures to airborne particles, particularly those rich in BC, which are primarily related to automobile traffic.
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    This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original DOI.
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    • MED: Medicine Papers [229]
    • SPH Environmental Health Papers and Presentations [90]

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