ArticleCardiovascular diagnosis and therapy2018
Air pollution and telomere length: a systematic review of 12,058 subjects.
Article in Cardiovascular diagnosis and therapy, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 2 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Leukocyte telomere length and obesity in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in genetics · 2022Pooled it
- Sperm telomere length as a novel biomarker of male infertility and embryonic development: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2022Pooled it
- The cGAS-STING pathway in pulmonary infectious and sterile inflammation: differences, connections, and therapeutic implications.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Associations between air pollution and relative leukocyte telomere length among northern Swedish adults based on findings from the Betula study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Environmental Health Is Overlooked in Longevity Research.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Shorter telomere length in COPD cases secondary to biomass-burning smoke exposure.Respiratory research · 2025Article
- Ambient air pollution, genetic risk and telomere length in UK biobank.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2024Article
- The association of leukocyte telomere length with exceptional longevity among older women.GeroScience · 2024Article
- Reduced SIRT1 and SIRT3 and Lower Antioxidant Capacity of Seminal Plasma Is Associated with Shorter Sperm Telomere Length in Oligospermic Men.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Examining the Cross-sectional Association Between Neighborhood Conditions, Discrimination, and Telomere Length in a Predominantly African American Sample.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2023Article
- The Road to Malignant Cell Transformation after Particulate Matter Exposure: From Oxidative Stress to Genotoxicity.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Aging, longevity, and the role of environmental stressors: a focus on wildfire smoke and air quality.Frontiers in toxicology · 2023Review
- Associations between ambient fine particulate (PMEnvironmental science and pollution research international · 2022Article
- Harnessing PM2.5 Exposure Data to Predict Progression of Fibrotic Interstitial Lung Diseases Based on Telomere Length.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Article
- The critical role of epigenetic mechanism in PMGenes and environment : the official journal of the Japanese Environmental Mutagen Society · 2021Review
- Genetic, Environmental and Lifestyle Determinants of Accelerated Telomere Attrition as Contributors to Risk and Severity of Multiple Sclerosis.Biomolecules · 2021Review
- Long-term personal air pollution exposure and risk for acute exacerbation of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2021Article
- Different epigenetic signatures of newborn telomere length and telomere attrition rate in early life.Aging · 2021Article
- Associations of annual ambient PMEnvironmental pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987) · 2020Article
- Ambient air pollution, asthma drug response, and telomere length in African American youth.The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundOver recent decades, adverse effects of ambient air pollution on the cardiovascular system have been clearly demonstrated. However, the underlying mechanisms are not fully elucidated. Air pollution may accelerates biological aging and thereby the susceptibility to cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Telomeres are tandem repetitive DNA complexes that play a critical role in maintaining chromosome stability. There are, however, heterogeneities among the reported effects of air pollution on telomere. This study sought to evaluate the existing literature on the association between air pollution and telomere length (TL).
methodsTwo reviewers independently searched on electronic databases including PUBMED, EMBASE, SCOPUS, WEB OF SCIENCE and Ovid. The key terms were "air pollution" and "telomere" without language restriction. Articles relating to tobacco smoke were excluded.
resultsA total of 12,058 subjects from 25 articles remained for final review. All were observational studies: 14 cross-sectional, 6 cohort and 5 case-control studies. Nineteen (76%) assessed leukocyte telomere length (LTL) of which 15 found associations between air pollution and shorter TL, 2 with longer TL, 1 had mixed results, and a study of patients with type 2 diabetes found non-significant associations with TL. One found longer TL from saliva. The remaining studies were of placental cells, buccal cells or sperm and all reported shorter TL associated with air pollution. Particulate matter (PM) was investigated in 8 articles, and the remainder assessed black carbon (BC), benzene, lead, cadmium and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH). Geographically, 11 studies were conducted in Europe, with 10 in Asia and 4 in North America. While all followed Cawthon's protocol for TL assessment, discordance in the reporting formats did not allow us to perform a quantitative meta-analysis.
conclusionsMost of the studies support the association of shorter TL with air pollution. Uniform reporting format would be warranted for future studies to estimate true effect size of air pollution on TL.
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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.