Here we compared younger men (22 ± 2 yr, n = 26), middle-aged men (31 ± 5 yr, n = 35), older men without CAD (60 ± 10 yr, n = 30) and older men with CAD (63 ± 8 yr, n = 30) in terms of testosterone/estradiol ratio, leukocyte telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) expression, activity of telomerase in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), and length of PBMC telomeres.
The aim of the present study was to determine whether six variants in the TERT gene are associated with risk of incident coronary heart disease, incident ischemic stroke, and mortality in participants in the biracial population-based Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, including rs2736100 that was found to influence mean telomere length in a genome-wide analysis.