Early Life Infection, but Not Breastfeeding, Predicts Adult Blood Telomere Lengths in the Philippines

Overview

Journal Am J Hum Biol

Specialty Biology

Date 2017 Jan 26

PMID 28121388

Citations 13

Authors

Dan T A Eisenberg

Judith B Borja

M Geoffrey Hayes

Christopher W Kuzawa

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objectives: Telomeres are repetitive DNA at chromosomes ends that shorten with age due to cellular replication and oxidative stress. As telomeres shorten, this can eventually place limits on cell replication and contribute to senescence. Infections are common during early development and activate cellular immune responses that involve clonal expansion and oxidative stress. As such, a high infectious disease burden might shorten blood telomere length (BTL) and accelerate the pace of immune senescence.

Methods: To test this, BTL measured in young adults (21.7 ± 0.3 years old) from the Philippines (N = 1,759) were linked to prospectively collected early life data on infectious burden.

Results: As predicted, increased early life diarrheal prevalence was associated with shorter adult BTL. The association was most marked for infections experienced from 6 to 12 months, which corresponds with weaning and maximal diarrheal burden. A standard deviation increase in infections at 6-12 m predicts a 45 bp decrease in BTL, equivalent to 3.3 years of adult telomeric aging in this population. Contrary to expectations, breastfeeding duration was not associated with BTL, nor did effects vary by sex.

Conclusions: These findings show that infancy diarrheal disease predicts a marker of cellular aging in adult immune cells. These findings suggest that early life infectious burden may influence late life health, or alternatively, that short TL in early life increases infectious disease susceptibility.

Citing Articles

Association Between Adverse Early Life Factors and Telomere Length in Middle and Late Life.

Lin F, Luo J, Zhu Y, Liang H, Li D, Han D Innov Aging. 2024; 8(9):igae070.

PMID: 39350941 PMC: 11441326. DOI: 10.1093/geroni/igae070.

DNA methylation-based estimators of telomere length show low correspondence with paternal age at conception and other measures of external validity of telomere length.

Eisenberg D, Ryan C, Lee N, Carba D, MacIsaac J, Dever K Geroscience. 2024; 46(4):3957-3969.

PMID: 38466455 PMC: 11226585. DOI: 10.1007/s11357-024-01114-2.

Exclusive breastfeeding lowers the odds of childhood diarrhea and other medical conditions: evidence from the 2016 Ethiopian demographic and health survey.

Mulatu T, Yimer N, Alemnew B, Linger M, Liben M Ital J Pediatr. 2021; 47(1):166.

PMID: 34344434 PMC: 8335997. DOI: 10.1186/s13052-021-01115-3.

Pilot Study of Absolute Telomere Lengths in Preterm Infants.

Casavant S, Li H, Reese B, Chen M, Cong X Nurs Res. 2021; 70(6):481-486.

PMID: 34173371 PMC: 8563375. DOI: 10.1097/NNR.0000000000000535.

Telomere length analysis from minimally-invasively collected samples: Methods development and meta-analysis of the validity of different sampling techniques: American Journal of Human Biology.

Rej P, Bondy M, Lin J, Prather A, Kohrt B, Worthman C Am J Hum Biol. 2020; 33(1):e23410.

PMID: 32189404 PMC: 8105084. DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.23410.

References

Richter T, von Zglinicki T . A continuous correlation between oxidative stress and telomere shortening in fibroblasts. Exp Gerontol. 2007; 42(11):1039-42. DOI: 10.1016/j.exger.2007.08.005. View

Bengtsson T, Lindstrom M . Airborne infectious diseases during infancy and mortality in later life in southern Sweden, 1766-1894. Int J Epidemiol. 2003; 32(2):286-94. DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyg061. View

Pommier J, Gauthier L, Livartowski J, Galanaud P, Boue F, Dulioust A . Immunosenescence in HIV pathogenesis. Virology. 1997; 231(1):148-54. DOI: 10.1006/viro.1997.8512. View

Oikawa S, Kawanishi S . Site-specific DNA damage at GGG sequence by oxidative stress may accelerate telomere shortening. FEBS Lett. 1999; 453(3):365-8. DOI: 10.1016/s0014-5793(99)00748-6. View

Eisenberg D, Kuzawa C, Hayes M . Improving qPCR telomere length assays: Controlling for well position effects increases statistical power. Am J Hum Biol. 2015; 27(4):570-5. PMC: 4478151. DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.22690. View

Frenck Jr R, Blackburn E, Shannon K . The rate of telomere sequence loss in human leukocytes varies with age. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998; 95(10):5607-10. PMC: 20425. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.95.10.5607. View

Ishii A, Nakamura K, Kishimoto H, Honma N, Aida J, Sawabe M . Telomere shortening with aging in the human pancreas. Exp Gerontol. 2006; 41(9):882-6. DOI: 10.1016/j.exger.2006.06.036. View

McDade T, Worthman C . The weanling's dilemma reconsidered: a biocultural analysis of breastfeeding ecology. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 1998; 19(4):286-99. DOI: 10.1097/00004703-199808000-00008. View

Benetos A, Kark J, Susser E, Kimura M, Sinnreich R, Chen W . Tracking and fixed ranking of leukocyte telomere length across the adult life course. Aging Cell. 2013; 12(4):615-21. PMC: 3798089. DOI: 10.1111/acel.12086. View

10.

Olovnikov A . [Principle of marginotomy in template synthesis of polynucleotides]. Dokl Akad Nauk SSSR. 1971; 201(6):1496-9. View

11.

Eisenberg D, Tackney J, Cawthon R, Cloutier C, Hawkes K . Paternal and grandpaternal ages at conception and descendant telomere lengths in chimpanzees and humans. Am J Phys Anthropol. 2016; 162(2):201-207. PMC: 5250553. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23109. View

12.

Dowling D, Simmons L . Reactive oxygen species as universal constraints in life-history evolution. Proc Biol Sci. 2009; 276(1663):1737-45. PMC: 2674489. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1791. View

13.

Yoon P, Black R, Moulton L, Becker S . Effect of not breastfeeding on the risk of diarrheal and respiratory mortality in children under 2 years of age in Metro Cebu, The Philippines. Am J Epidemiol. 1996; 143(11):1142-8. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a008692. View

14.

Lo Y, Chan K, Sun H, Chen E, Jiang P, Lun F . Maternal plasma DNA sequencing reveals the genome-wide genetic and mutational profile of the fetus. Sci Transl Med. 2010; 2(61):61ra91. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3001720. View

15.

Asghar M, Palinauskas V, Zaghdoudi-Allan N, Valkiunas G, Mukhin A, Platonova E . Parallel telomere shortening in multiple body tissues owing to malaria infection. Proc Biol Sci. 2016; 283(1836). PMC: 5013771. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.1184. View

16.

Victora C, Smith P, VAUGHAN J, Nobre L, Lombardi C, Teixeira A . Infant feeding and deaths due to diarrhea. A case-control study. Am J Epidemiol. 1989; 129(5):1032-41. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a115207. View

17.

Ji C, Huang X, Yang R, Wang X, Zhao Z . Gonadotropins and sex hormones in healthy Chinese infants. Indian Pediatr. 2008; 45(6):489-92. View

18.

Plunkett F, Soares M, Annels N, Hislop A, Ivory K, Lowdell M . The flow cytometric analysis of telomere length in antigen-specific CD8+ T cells during acute Epstein-Barr virus infection. Blood. 2001; 97(3):700-7. DOI: 10.1182/blood.v97.3.700. View

19.

Croteau-Chonka D, Marvelle A, Lange E, Lee N, Adair L, Lange L . Genome-wide association study of anthropometric traits and evidence of interactions with age and study year in Filipino women. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2010; 19(5):1019-27. PMC: 3046220. DOI: 10.1038/oby.2010.256. View

20.

White I, Royston P, Wood A . Multiple imputation using chained equations: Issues and guidance for practice. Stat Med. 2011; 30(4):377-99. DOI: 10.1002/sim.4067. View