This Article Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF) All Versions of this Article: 1403494808090634v1 1403494808090634v2 36/7/744    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Nordjfäll, K Articles by Nilsson, P. M Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Nordjfäll, K Articles by Nilsson, P. M Pubmed/NCBI databases Medline Plus Health Information Obesity Seniors' Health Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Increased abdominal obesity, adverse psychosocial factors and shorter telomere length in subjects reporting early ageing; the MONICA Northern Sweden Study

¹ Department of Medical Biosciences, Pathology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
² Department of Medicine, Sunderbyn Hospital, Luleå, Sweden
³ Medicine, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
⁴ Department of Clinical Sciences Medicine, University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

	Abstract

Background: The rate of biological ageing is individual and represents the steady decrease in physiological and mental functions. Adverse social factors have been shown to influence this process. Self-perceived early ageing (SEA) might be a useful indicator of early biological ageing and increased mortality risk. The aim of this population-based study was to identify markers of SEA, including telomere length.

Methods: We studied 1502 subjects (744 men, 758 women) from Northern Sweden. These subjects underwent a physical examination, blood sampling (including telomere length) and completed a self-administered questionnaire about their subjective age, social situation, lifestyle, and self-rated health (SRH). Age- and SRH-adjusted statistical analyses were made comparing SEA subjects with same-sex controls.

Results: In all, 7.9% of men and 12.1% of women reported SEA. These subjects had significantly (p<0.0001) wider waist circumference and higher body mass index than controls. SEA men showed higher fasting glucose and SEA women showed higher total cholesterol levels than controls (p = 0.020 and p = 0.015, respectively). In addition, SEA women more often reported infrequent physical exercise (p = 0.006), mental problems (p = 0.064) and worse SRH (p = 0.001) than controls. In a random sub-sample, telomere length was significantly shorter in SEA subjects (n = 139) than controls (n = 301; p = 0.02), but not after full adjustment for BMI.

Conclusions : Self-perceived early ageing is not uncommon and is associated with abdominal obesity, poor self-rated health, lower education, and shorter telomere length. This could link adverse social factors with features of the metabolic syndrome as well as with early biological ageing, of importance for targeting preventive programmes.

Key Words: Ageing, metabolic syndrome, self-perceived, smoking, social, telomere length

First published on July 22, 2008, doi:10.1177/1403494808090634

Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 2008;36:744.

A more recent version of this article appeared on September 1, 2008


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?