ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2018
Reflections on telomere dynamics and ageing-related diseases in humans.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 90 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
90 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 161 citations in OpenAlex.
- A meta-analysis on the heritability of vertebrate telomere length.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2022Pooled it
- The Impact of Foods, Nutrients, or Dietary Patterns on Telomere Length in Childhood and Adolescence: A Systematic Review.Nutrients · 2022Pooled it
- Loci for human leukocyte telomere length in the Singaporean Chinese population and trans-ethnic genetic studies.Nature communications · 2019Pooled it
- Genetic Determinants of Telomere Length and Their Role in Human Disease: Molecular Mechanisms and Underrepresented Populations' Perspectives.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Heterogeneous leukocyte telomere trajectories and inflammatory resolution 12 months after mild COVID-19: an exploratory cohort study.Frontiers in aging · 2026Article
- Biological aging and lifespan in men and women using a Mendelian randomization study.Human genomics · 2025Article
- Common DNA sequence variation influences epigenetic aging in African populations.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Assortative breeding experiment in a songbird suggests telomere length is determined during early life rather than at conception.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Remote Blood Collection for Telomere Length Measurement: Assessing the Impact of Sample Characteristics and Handling on DNA Quality and Assay Outcomes.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Remote Blood Collection for Telomere Length Measurement: Assessing the Impact of Sample Characteristics and Handling on DNA Quality and Assay Outcomes.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Telomere Length, Oxidative Stress Markers, and Related miRNAs in Non-Invasive Samples of Mild COVID-19 Cases.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Associations of essential trace metals with telomere length in general population: a cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Variation in the Content of Three Tandem Repeats of the Human Genome (Ribosomal, Satellite III, and Telomere) in Peripheral Blood Leukocyte DNA of People of Different Ages (5-101 Years).Journal of aging research · 2025Article
- Telomere length and COVID-19 disease severity: insights from hospitalized patients.Frontiers in aging · 2025Article
- Shortening of the telomere length during the transition period of dairy cows in relation to biological stress.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Mapping the evolving trend of research on leukocyte telomere length: a text-mining study.Human genomics · 2024Article
- Developmental origins of psycho-cardiometabolic multimorbidity in adolescence and their underlying pathways through methylation markers: a two-cohort study.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2024Article
- Association between telomere length and Plasmodium falciparum malaria endemicity in sub-Saharan Africans.American journal of human genetics · 2024Article
- Telomere length and cancer risk: finding Goldilocks.Biogerontology · 2024Review
- Association of dietary inflammatory index and systemic inflammatory markers with mortality risk in depressed adults: a mediation analysis of NHANES data.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
30 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Epidemiological studies have principally relied on measurements of telomere length (TL) in leucocytes, which reflects TL in other somatic cells. Leucocyte TL (LTL) displays vast variation across individuals-a phenomenon already observed in newborns. It is highly heritable, longer in females than males and in individuals of African ancestry than European ancestry. LTL is also longer in offspring conceived by older men. The traditional view regards LTL as a passive biomarker of human ageing. However, new evidence suggests that a dynamic interplay between selective evolutionary forces and TL might result in trade-offs for specific health outcomes. From a biological perspective, an active role of TL in ageing-related human diseases could occur because short telomeres increase the risk of a category of diseases related to restricted cell proliferation and tissue degeneration, including cardiovascular disease, whereas long telomeres increase the risk of another category of diseases related to increased proliferative growth, including major cancers. To understand the role of telomere biology in ageing-related diseases, it is essential to expand telomere research to newborns and children and seek further insight into the underlying causes of the variation in TL due to ancestry and geographical location.This article is part of the theme issue 'Understanding diversity in telomere dynamics'.
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