ESPE Abstracts

Background: Subjects born preterm have an increased risk for ageing-associated diseases such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) in later life but the underlying cause is largely unknown. Telomere length (TL) is a usable index for ageing, with shorter TL indicating older biological age. Furthermore, short TL is associated with CVD.

Objective and hypotheses: To investigate TL in subjects born preterm compared to term and to assess if TL is associated with risk factors for CVD.

Method: We measured mean leucocyte TL using quantitative PCR in 470 young adults. We analysed the influence of multiple variables on TL in a linear multiple regression analysis and compared TL between subjects born preterm (n=186) and term (n=284). Furthermore, we analysed the correlation between TL and risk factors for CVD (i.e. body composition, blood pressure, lipid levels, insulin sensitivity, and the inflammatory biomarker C-reactive protein).

Results: Gestational age was positively associated with TL (P=0.02). Subjects born preterm had significantly shorter TL (mean TL=3.12) than subjects born term (mean TL=3.25) (P=0.003), comparable with a difference of ~180 bp (Brouilette et al., Lancet, 2007). Significance of this difference increased after correction for gender and size at birth (P=0.001). TL was not associated with risk factors for CVD.

Conclusion: Young adults born preterm have shorter TL than young adults born term, indicating a difference in biological age of ~5–12 years at the same calendar age. This supports the association between ageing-associated diseases and preterm birth. TL was not associated with risk factors for CVD, suggesting that TL is an independent biomarker in the correlation between preterm birth and CVD. Since the prevalence of preterm birth and survival is rapidly increasing, our results are of clinical relevance for an increasing number of subjects worldwide.