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Updated: Jul 9, 2026

Telomere Length and Telomerase Activity; A Yin and Yang of Cell Senescence
Published on: May 22, 2013
Telomere length and risk of Parkinson's disease
Hao Wang1, Honglei Chen, Xiang Gao
1Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. hwangi@hsph.harvard.edu
Abstract:
We investigated whether telomere length was associated with the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) in a case-control study (96 cases and 172 age-matched controls) nested within the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Relative ratio of telomere repeat copy number to single-gene copy number in peripheral blood leukocytes was determined by quantitative real time PCR. Men with shorter telomeres had a lower PD risk (multivariate adjusted relative risk for the lowest vs. the highest quartile 0.33; 95% confidence interval: 0.12-0.90). Our results suggest that, contrary to telomere attrition observed in several aging-related diseases, shorter telomeres are not associated with an increased risk of PD.
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