I have been tracking the value of testing for the leukocyte telomere length (LTL) for a number of months. The test has frequently been promoted by anti-aging physicians as part of their routine test panels to assess one's biologic age as opposed to one's chronologic age. Some of the claims about the test seemed to be a little hard for me to believe. However, a recent article about the test in as very reputable journal (see: The Association Between Physical Activity in Leisure Time and Leukocyte Telomere Length) rekindled my interest. Below is an abstract from the summary of the article (boldface emphasis mine):
...Leukocyte telomere dynamics ... are ostensibly a biological indicator of human aging. We therefore tested the hypothesis that physical activity level in leisure time ...is associated with leukocyte telomere length (LTL) in normal healthy volunteers.....Leukocyte telomere length was positively associated with increasing physical activity level in leisure time (P < .001); this association remained significant after adjustment for age, sex, body mass index, smoking, socioeconomic status, and physical activity at work....A sedentary lifestyle (in addition to smoking, high body mass index, and low socioeconomic status) has an effect on LTL and may accelerate the aging process. This provides a powerful message that could be used by clinicians to promote the potentially antiaging effect of regular exercise.
A Google search for leukocyte telomere length and anti-aging yielded 831 hits, so this is obviously a topic of some interest. I have posted a number of previous notes about the topic of anti-aging medicine and lab testing. An interesting resource for further reading is the Anti-Aging Library of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine that makes reference to this very article. You may very well ask the question: why run a lab test to determine a patient's degree of activity when a simple medical history will suffice to achieve the very same end (if the results are deemed reliable)? I think that the answer to this question lies in the quote from the article above. The objective evidence of exercise, or the lack thereof, provides a powerful message to patients to alter their lifestyles in order to live longer, particularly when associated with other lab tests to assess other wellness parameters.
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