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In the second of three short clips featuring Elizabeth Blackburn, recorded at the recent EMBO 2010 meeting in Barcelona, Edyta Zielinska asks what is the link between telomere length and cardiovascular disease.

Again, we had trouble with the pianist (not a problem normally associated with scientific research), so a synopsis of what Dr Blackburn said follows the video.

F1000: What links cardiovascular disease to telomere length?

Liz Blackburn (paraphrased):

Telomere length, when measured at a single point in time, is related to the future risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) [shorter telomeres = increased risk, e.g. Fitzpatrick et al, 2007]. How telomere length changes over time (a couple of years) is a quite good predictor of CVD. Maintenance of telomerase length, or even growth, results in a threefold less chance of dying from CVD.

We looked at risk factors for CVD progression; e.g. levels of omega 3 fatty acids in red blood cell membranes: this predicts how telomere ends will shorten or not over the following five years [10.1001/jama.2009.2008]. Omega 3 fatty acids are interesting because they have good epidemiological linkage with CVD. There are all these dots starting to get connected that haven’t been connected before. So we’re pretty interested in whether you can modify telomere length behaviour over time, while monitoring the effects of exercise & [clinical] intervention on real diseases.