Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Dec 29:17:101018.
doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.101018. eCollection 2022 Mar.

Higher educational attainment is associated with longer telomeres in midlife: Evidence from sibling comparisons in the UK Biobank

Vikesh Amin  1 , Jason M Fletcher  2 , Zhongxuan Sun  3 , Qiongshi Lu  3
Affiliations

Higher educational attainment is associated with longer telomeres in midlife: Evidence from sibling comparisons in the UK Biobank

Vikesh Amin et al. SSM Popul Health. .

Abstract

Prior studies have established that higher educational attainment is associated with a longer telomere length (TL), a marker of cellular aging. However, it is unclear whether extant associations are causal, since they are likely confounded by unobserved genetic, early-life and family background factors that are correlated with education and TL. We leverage sibling differences in TL, education and measured genetics (polygenic scores for educational attainment and TL) to estimate associations between educational attainment and TL in midlife for European ancestry individuals in the UK Biobank, while controlling for unobserved confounders shared by siblings. After controlling for genetics and shared background between siblings, we find suggestive evidence that high school graduates have longer telomeres than high school dropouts, but we find no differences in TL between high school dropouts and college graduates.

Keywords: Causal inference; Cellular aging; Education; Telomere length.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

None.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flowchart of sample selection criteria for full analytical sample.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Adams J., Martin‐Ruiz C., Pearce M.S., White M., Parker L., Von Zglinicki T. No association between socio‐economic status and white blood cell telomere length. Aging Cell. 2007;6(1):125–128. - PubMed
    1. Adler N., Pantell M.S., O'Donovan A., Blackburn E., Cawthon R., Koster A., Epel E. Educational attainment and late life telomere length in the health, aging and body composition study. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. 2013;27:15–21. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ajrouch K.J., Blandon A.Y., Antonucci T.C. Social networks among men and women: The effects of age and socioeconomic status. Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences. 2005;60(6):S311–S317. - PubMed
    1. Alexeeff S.E., Schaefer C.A., Kvale M.N., Shan J., Blackburn E.H., Risch N., Van Den Eeden S.K. Telomere length and socioeconomic status at neighborhood and individual levels among 80,000 adults in the Genetic Epidemiology Research on Adult Health and Aging cohort. Environmental Epidemiology. 2019;3(3):e049. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Almlund M., Duckworth A.L., Heckman J., Kautz T. Handbook of the economics of education. Vol. 4. Elsevier; 2011. Personality psychology and economics; pp. 1–181.

LinkOut - more resources