Chronic Pain and Telomere Length in Community-Dwelling Adults: Findings From the 1999-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Author: Steward AM1, Morgan JD2, Espinosa JP3, Turk DC3, Patel KV4
Affiliation:
1Center for Pain Research on Impact, Measurement, and Effectiveness, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle; Computational Neuroscience Program, University of Washington, Seattle.
2Center for Pain Research on Impact, Measurement, and Effectiveness, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle; Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota.
3Center for Pain Research on Impact, Measurement, and Effectiveness, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle.
4Center for Pain Research on Impact, Measurement, and Effectiveness, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle; Division of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle. Electronic address: kvpatel@uw.edu.
Conference/Journal: J Pain.
Date published: 2017 Sep 12
Other:
Pages: S1526-5900(17)30697-1 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2017.08.006. [Epub ahead of print] , Word Count: 309
Chronic pain is a common condition associated with psychological distress, functional impairments, and age-associated comorbidity. Preliminary studies, based on relatively small sample sizes, suggest that the combination of chronic pain and stress is associated with telomere shortening, a widely recognized marker of cellular aging. We sought to determine the cross-sectional association of chronic pain with telomere length in 7,816 community-dwelling adults ages 20 and older who participated in the 1999-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Consistent with previous studies, leukocyte telomere length was assessed using the quantitative polymerase chain reaction method and compared to a DNA reference standard to compute a Telomere to Single Copy Gene (T/S) ratio. Standardized, in-person interviews were used to identify chronic regional pain (CRP) and chronic widespread pain (CWP) in 784 (10.0%) and 266 (3.4%) participants, respectively. Older age, male sex, obesity, and less physical activity were associated with shorter telomere length (P<0.05 for all comparisons); however, there was no association of chronic pain with telomere length. The age-adjusted means (standard error) of telomere length T/S ratios were 1.04 (0.02), 1.03 (0.02), and 1.02 (0.02) in participants with no chronic pain, CRP, and CWP, respectively (P=0.69). In addition, chronic pain did not modify the effects of age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, or psychological distress on telomere length. In summary, chronic regional and widespread pain were not associated with telomere length in this nationally representative study; however, we could not determine associations of pain duration and severity with telomere length because of limitations in pain assessment data.
PERSPECTIVE: The findings from the current study do not support the hypothesis that chronic pain accelerates cellular aging as measured by leukocyte telomere length. Additional population-based studies with more detailed assessments of pain and stress are needed to further investigate potential interactive effects on telomere length and other biomarkers of aging.
Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.
KEYWORDS: Chronic pain; aging; epidemiology; telomere
PMID: 28919432 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpain.2017.08.006
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