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.
Eight variables, including age, gender, cholesterol, high density lipoprotein, homocysteine, total bilirubin, indirect bilirubin, and rs2736100 GG genotype, were associated with atherosclerosis with odds ratios of 1.88, 2.11, 1.66, 0.23, 1.27, 1.29, 1.53, and 1.74, respectively, using multivariate logistic regression analyses.