Sedentary Behaviour and Telomere Length Shortening during Early Childhood: Evidence from the Multicentre Prospective INMA Cohort Study
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Date
2023-03-14Author
Prieto Botella, Daniel
Martens, Dries S.
Valera Gran, Desirée
Subiza Pérez, Mikel
Tardón, Adonina
Lozano, Manuel
Casas, Maribel
Bustamante, Mariona
Jimeno Romero, Alba
Fernández Somoano, Ana
Llop, Sabrina
Vrijheid, Martine
Nawrot, Tim S.
Navarrete Muñoz, Eva María
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International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 20(6) : (2023) // Article ID 5134
Abstract
Sedentary behaviour (SB) may be related to telomere length (TL) attrition due to a possible pro-inflammatory effect. This study examined the association between parent-reported sedentary behaviour (SB) and leukocyte TL at the age of 4 and telomere tracking from 4 to 8 years. In the Spanish birth cohort Infancia y Medio Ambiente (INMA) project, we analysed data from children who attended follow-up visits at age 4 (n = 669) and 8 (n = 530). Multiple robust regression models were used to explore the associations between mean daily hours of SB (screen time, other sedentary activities, and total SB) at 4 years categorised into tertiles and TL at 4 years and difference in TL rank between age 4 and 8, respectively. At the age of 4, the results showed that children with the highest screen time (1.6–5.0 h/day) had a shorter TL of −3.9% (95% CI: −7.4, −0.4; p = 0.03) compared with children in the lowest tertile (0.0–1.0 h/day). Between 4 and 8 years, a higher screen time (highest tertile group vs. lowest tertile) was associated with a decrease in the LTL rank of −1.9% (95% CI: −3.8, −0.1; p = 0.03) from 4 to 8 years. Children exposed to a higher screen time at 4 years were more prone to have shorter TL at 4 and between 4 and 8 years of age. This study supports the potential negative effect of SB during childhood on cellular longevity.
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).