Telomere length and risk of Parkinson's disease

Hao Wang, Honglei Chen, Xiang Gao, Monica McGrath, Dwayne Deer, Immaculata De Vivo, Michael A. Schwarzschild, Alberto Ascherio

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

78 Scopus citations

Abstract

We investigated whether telomere length was associated with the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) in a case-control study (96 cases and 172 age-matched controls) nested within the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Relative ratio of telomere repeat copy number to single-gene copy number in peripheral blood leukocytes was determined by quantitative real time PCR. Men with shorter telomeres had a lower PD risk (multivariate adjusted relative risk for the lowest vs. the highest quartile 0.33; 95% confidence interval: 0.12-0.90). Our results suggest that, contrary to telomere attrition observed in several aging-related diseases, shorter telomeres are not associated with an increased risk of PD.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)302-305
Number of pages4
JournalMovement Disorders
Volume23
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 30 2008

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Neurology
  • Clinical Neurology

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