@article{16743ef6609647f58a36e69600b78c97,
title = "Smoking does not accelerate leucocyte telomere attrition: a meta-analysis of 18 longitudinal cohorts",
abstract = "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.",
keywords = "biological age, telomere length, telomere attrition, smoking, longitudinal",
author = "Melissa Bateson and Abraham Aviv and Laila Bendix and Athanase Benetos and Yoav Ben-Shlomo and Bojesen, {Stig E.} and Cyrus Cooper and Rachel Cooper and Deary, {Ian J.} and Sara H{\"a}gg and Harris, {Sarah E.} and Kark, {Jeremy D.} and Florian Kronenberg and Diana Kuh and Carlos Labat and Martin-Ruiz, {Carmen M.} and Craig Meyer and Nordestgaard, {B{\o}rge G.} and Penninx, {Brenda W. J. H.} and Pepper, {Gillian V.} and D{\'o}ra R{\'e}v{\'e}sz and Said, {M. Abdullah} and Starr, {John M.} and Holly Syddall and Thomson, {William Murray} and {Van Der Harst}, Pim and Mary Whooley and {von Zglinicki}, Thomas and Peter Willeit and Yiqiang Zhan and Daniel Nettle",
note = "Funding Information: Funding. Cohorts acknowledge the following sources of funding: LBC1921, CCS, HAS and NSHD—New Dynamics of Ageing via the HALCyon cross-cohort collaborative programme (RES-353-25-0001); LBC1921—UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), The Royal Society, and The Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government, Lifelong Health and Wellbeing Initiative (MR/K026992/1); LBC1936—Age UK (Disconnected Mind Project); NSHD—UK Medical Research Council; JLRCS—US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (AG030678 and AG201320); DMHDS—US National Institute on Aging (AG032282) and the UK Medical Research Council (MR/K00381X and MR/P005918); NESDA—The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (10-000-1002), VU University Medical Center, GGZ inGeest, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden University, GGZ Rivierduinen, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Lentis, GGZ Friesland, GGZ Drenthe, Rob Giel Onderzoekscentrum. The authors additionally acknowledge the following sources of funding: M.B.—National Centre for the Replacement Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC/ K000802/1); D.N. and G.V.P.—European Research Council (AdG 666669); A.A.—National Institutes of Health (R01HL116446, R01HD071180, R01HL13840); S.H. and Y.Z.—Karolinska Institutet Delfinansiering, the Swedish Research Council (2015-03255), the Loo & Hans Osterman Foundation, the Foundation for Geriatric Diseases, the Magnus Bergwall Foundation, the Erik R{\"o}nnberg award for aging studies and the Strategic Research Program in Epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet; C.C. and H.S.—UK Medical Research Council and University of Southampton; T.v.Z.—UK Medical Research Council (G0601333); I.J.D., J.M.S. and S.E.H.—Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, which is funded by the Medical Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (MR/K026992/1). Acknowledgements. We are grateful to all of the people who took part in the study, either as participants, or as part of the research teams responsible for the 18 cohorts analysed. We thank Jimmy Zeng who computed summary statistics for DMHDS. We also thank Maya B. Mathur and Idan Shalev who provided thoughtful reviewers{\textquoteright} comments that substantially improved the paper. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 The Authors.",
year = "2019",
month = jun,
day = "5",
doi = "10.1098/rsos.190420",
language = "English",
volume = "6",
journal = "Royal Society Open Science",
issn = "2054-5703",
publisher = "The Royal Society",
number = "6",
}