TY - JOUR T1 - Telomere Length Among Older U.S. Adults: Differences by Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Age. JF - J Aging Health Y1 - 2017 A1 - Lauren L Brown A1 - Belinda L Needham A1 - Jennifer A Ailshire KW - Aged KW - Aging KW - Biomarkers KW - Female KW - Health Status Disparities KW - Humans KW - Interviews as Topic KW - Male KW - Minority Groups KW - Qualitative Research KW - Telomere KW - United States AB -

OBJECTIVE: We examine race/ethnic, gender, and age differences in telomere length (TL) within a diverse, nationally representative sample of older adults.

METHOD: Data come from 5,228 White, Black, and Hispanic respondents aged 54+ in the 2008 Health and Retirement Study. TL was assayed from saliva using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) by comparing telomere sequence copy number with a single gene copy number (T/S ratio). Linear regression was used to examine TL by race/ethnicity, gender, and age adjusting for social, economic, and health characteristics.

RESULTS: Women had longer TL than men (p < .05). Blacks ( p < .05) and Hispanics ( p < .10) had longer TL than Whites. Black women and men had the longest TL relative to other groups ( p < .05), while White men had the shortest TL ( p < .05). Black women and Hispanic men showed greater differences in TL with age.

DISCUSSION: Findings indicate social patterns in TL by race/ethnicity, gender, and age among older adults do not reflect differences observed in most population health outcomes.

VL - 29 UR - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27469599 IS - 8 U1 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27469599?dopt=Abstract ER -