Association Between Baseline Buccal Telomere Length and Progression of Kidney Function: The Health and Retirement Study

We aimed to evaluate associations of baseline telomere length with overall and annual change in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and trajectory of kidney function during an 8-year follow-up. A total of 3 964 participants of the Health and Retirement Study were included. We identified 3 trajectory groups of kidney function: consistently normal (n = 1 163 or 29.3%), normal to impaired (n = 2 306 or 58.2%), and consistently impaired groups (n = 495 or 12.5%). After controlling for age, sex, race, education, smoking, drinking, diabetes, heart disease, blood pressure, body mass index, total cholesterol, and hemoglobin A1c, participants with longer telomere length were 20% less likely (odds ratio = 0.80, 95% confidence interval: 0.69-0.93, p = .003) to have a normal to impaired kidney function trajectory than a consistently normal function trajectory. Telomere length was not associated with changing rate of eGFR over 8 years (p = .45). Participants with longer telomere length were more likely to have consistently normal kidney function.