Observational studyJournal of the American Heart Association2017
Association Between Leukocyte Telomere Length and the Risk of Incident Atrial Fibrillation: The Framingham Heart Study.
Observational study in Journal of the American Heart Association, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Leucocyte telomere length and paroxysmal atrial fibrillation: A prospective cohort study and systematic review with meta-analysis.Journal of clinical laboratory analysis · 2018Pooled it
- Epigenetic Age and the Risk of Incident Atrial Fibrillation.Circulation · 2021Trial
- Contributions of Biological Aging to Longitudinal Incidence and Dynamic Progression of Atrial Fibrillation: A Prospective Cohort Study.Reviews in cardiovascular medicine · 2026Article
- Leukocyte telomere length and circulating MiRNAs in relation to cardiovascular outcomes in older adults.BMC geriatrics · 2026Article
- Telomere Shortening Drives Atrial Fibrillation Through VCAM-1 Mediated Atrial Electrical and Structural Remodeling.Aging cell · 2026Article
- The relationship between homocysteine and new-onset atrial fibrillation in patients with acute myocardial infarction.Annals of medicine · 2025Article
- DNA Methylation and Telomeres-Their Impact on the Occurrence of Atrial Fibrillation during Cardiac Aging.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Causal relationship between atrial fibrillation and leukocyte telomere length: A two sample, bidirectional Mendelian randomization study.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2023Article
- Longer Leukocyte Telomere Length Increases the Risk of Atrial Fibrillation: A Mendelian Randomization Study.Aging and disease · 2022Article
- The Relationship between Dietary Copper intake and Telomere Length in Hypertension.The journal of nutrition, health & aging · 2022Article
- Accelerated Epigenetic Aging and Incident Atrial Fibrillation: New Outlook on an Immutable Risk Factor?Circulation · 2021Article
- Hemodynamic characteristics and early warnings in very old patients.American journal of translational research · 2021Review
- Long noncoding RNA in cardiac aging and disease.Journal of molecular cell biology · 2019Review
- Refining the Association Between Body Mass Index and Atrial Fibrillation: G-Formula and Restricted Mean Survival Times.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2019Article
- Leukocyte telomere length is associated with elevated plasma glucose and HbA1c in young healthy men independent of birth weight.Scientific reports · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAdvancing age is a prominent risk factor for atrial fibrillation (AF). Shorter telomere length is a biomarker of biological aging, but the link between shorter telomere length and increased risk of AF remains unclear. We examined the association between shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and incident AF. METHODS AND
resultsWe included AF-free participants from the observational Framingham Heart Study Offspring cohort from 1995 to 1998, who had LTL measurements. We examined the association between baseline LTL and incident AF with multivariable Cox models adjusted for age, sex, current smoking, height, weight, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, use of antihypertensive medication, diabetes mellitus, history of myocardial infarction, and history of heart failure. The study sample comprised 1143 AF-free participants (52.8% women), with mean age of 60±8 years. The mean LTL at baseline was 6.95±0.57 kb. During 15.1±4.2 years mean follow-up, 184 participants (64 women) developed AF. Chronological age was associated with increased risk of AF (hazard ratio per 10-year increase, 2.16; 95% confidence interval, 1.71-2.72). There was no significant association between LTL and incident AF (hazard ratio per 1 SD decrease LTL, 1.01; 95% confidence interval, 0.86-1.19). Our study was observational in nature; hence, we could not exclude residual confounding and we were unable to establish causal pathways.
conclusionsIn our moderate-sized community-based cohort, we did not find evidence for a significant association between LTL and risk of incident AF.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.