TY - JOUR
T1 - Higher educational attainment is associated with longer telomeres in midlife: Evidence from sibling comparisons in the UK Biobank
AU - Fletcher, Jason
AU - Amin, Vikesh
N1 - Funding Information:
Vikesh Amin acknowledges research funding from NIH grant number 1R01HD094011-01. The authors gratefully acknowledge use of the facilities of the Center for Demography of Health and Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, funded by NIA Center Grant P30 AG017266. This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource under Application 57284.
Funding Information:
Vikesh Amin acknowledges research funding from NIH grant number 1R01HD094011-01 . The authors gratefully acknowledge use of the facilities of the Center for Demography of Health and Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison , funded by NIA Center Grant P30 AG017266 . This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource under Application 57284.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
M3 - Article
JO - Social Science & Medicine-Population Health
JF - Social Science & Medicine-Population Health
ER -