The age modification to leukocyte telomere length effect on bone mineral density and osteoporosis among Chinese elderly women

Critically short telomeres indicate cellular senescence. Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is regarded as an aging predictor. Osteoporosis is an age-related disease. The purpose of our study is to examine the association between LTL, and BMD and osteoporosis among an elderly Chinese population. A total of 1017 participants (584 postmenopausal women) with a mean age of 66.4 years were recruited from April 2016 to August 2017. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry was used for BMD measurement at skeleton sites of lumbar spine (LS), femoral neck (FN), and total hip (TH). LTL was measured using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Among women, age significantly modified the effect of LTL on BMD at FN. Additionally, significant age modification was observed for the association between LTL and LS BMD category (indicative of control or osteopenia or osteoporosis), and the number of osteoporotic sites at LS or TH. The corresponding estimates (95% CI) for the relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI) were − 0.07 (− 0.11, − 0.01) and − 0.11 (− 0.16, − 0.03) sequentially in ordinal logistic regression models. The estimated RERIs (95% CI) were − 0.11 (− 0.25, − 0.02) and − 0.23 (− 0.39, − 0.10) in multinomial logistic regression models for LS/FN/TH BMD category, and − 0.20 (− 0.31, − 0.09) and − 0.34 (− 0.49, − 0.21) for FN BMD category. However, similar findings did not show in men. The effect of LTL on BMD and osteoporosis risk is modified by age in elderly women but not in men, suggesting that the predictive role of LTL in bone loss differs by sex.