ArticleEuropean journal of neurology2014
Telomere length and Parkinson's disease in men: a nested case-control study.
Article in European journal of neurology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Telomere length in Parkinson's disease: A meta-analysis.Experimental gerontology · 2016Pooled it
- Preliminary insights into whole-blood mitochondrial DNA copy number and telomere length in Parkinson's disease and multiple system atrophy.Journal of neurology · 2026Article
- Association between leukocyte telomere length and neurodegenerative diseases: a prospective cohort in the UK Biobank.Journal of neurology · 2026Article
- Adjunctive EGb 761 treatment in patients with Parkinson's disease: a case series.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Article
- Shared molecular mechanisms in aging and neurodegenerative diseases: from mechanistic insights to therapeutic strategies.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Review
- Genetics Influences Telomere Length in Parkinson's Disease: A Study in Monozygotic Discordant Twins.Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society · 2025Article
- The relationship between telomere length and aging-related diseases.Clinical and experimental medicine · 2025Review
- Article
- Mitochondrial biogenesis, telomere length and cellular senescence in Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Is Telomere Length Shortening a Risk Factor for Neurodegenerative Disorders?Dementia and neurocognitive disorders · 2022Review
- Retinal age gap as a predictive biomarker of future risk of Parkinson's disease.Age and ageing · 2022Article
- Mendelian randomization implies no direct causal association between leukocyte telomere length and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Senescence and Inflammatory Markers for Predicting Clinical Progression in Parkinson's Disease: The ICICLE-PD Study.Journal of Parkinson's disease · 2020Article
- Telomere Attrition in Neurodegenerative Disorders.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2020Article
- Effect of therapies-mediated modulation of telomere and/or telomerase on cancer cells radiosensitivity.Oncotarget · 2018Review
- Telomere Length and Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings of Vascular Brain Injury and Central Brain Atrophy: The Strong Heart Study.American journal of epidemiology · 2018Article
- The Emerging Roles for Telomerase in the Central Nervous System.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2018Review
- Review
- Telomere shortening leads to an acceleration of synucleinopathy and impaired microglia response in a genetic mouse model.Acta neuropathologica communications · 2016Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
background and purposeTelomere shortening has been implicated in neurodegenerative disorders. However, available data on the association between telomere length and Parkinson's disease (PD) are inconclusive.
methodsA nested case-control design was used amongst men participating in the prospective Physicians' Health Study. A large proportion of participants provided blood samples in 1997 and they were followed through 2010. Men with self-reported PD were age-matched to controls in a 1:2 ratio. Quantitative PCR was used to determine the telomere repeat copy number to single gene copy number ratio (TSR) in genomic DNA extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes. TSR was used as a measure for relative telomere length (RTL) in our analyses. Conditional logistic regression was used to determine the risk of PD associated with RTL.
resultsData on RTL were available from 408 cases and 809 controls. Median TSR was shorter in controls than in cases (47.7 vs. 50.2; P = 0.02). The age-adjusted odds ratio (OR) for PD was 0.66 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.46-0.95; Ptrend over quartiles 0.02] comparing the lowest to the highest quartile. The pattern of association was unchanged when comparing RTL below versus above the median (age-adjusted OR 0.75; 95% CI 0.59-0.96). Associations were similar after additional adjustment for many covariates.
conclusionContrary to what was expected, in this large nested case-control study amongst men shorter telomeres were associated with reduced PD risk. Future research on the nature of this counterintuitive association is warranted.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.