Associations of telomere length with risk of mortality from influenza and pneumonia in US adults: a prospective cohort study of NHANES 1999-2002.

Background: Due to the ongoing Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, interest has arisen to realize the relationship between telomere length (TL) and influenza and pneumonia mortality.

Aim: Our study attempted to investigate this correlation by analyzing information gathered from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2002.

Methods: A total of 7229 participants were involved in the conducted research. We utilized Cox proportional risk model analysis to determine the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for TL and influenza and pneumonia mortality.

Results: During the average follow-up time of 204.10 ± 51.26 months, 33 (0.45%) participants died from influenza and pneumonia. After adjusting for multiple variables, shorter TL was associated with higher influenza-pneumonia mortality. In subgroup analyses stratified by sex, men exhibited stronger associations with influenza-pneumonia mortality than women (Model 1: HR: 0.014 vs HR: 0.054; Model 2: HR: 0.082 vs HR: 0.890; Model 3: HR: 0.072 vs HR: 0.776). For subgroup analyses by visceral adiposity index (VAI), all statistically significant (P < 0.05) models displayed an inverse relationship between TL and influenza and pneumonia mortality.

Conclusions: Our research provides further proof for the connection between shorter telomeres and higher influenza-pneumonia mortality. Larger prospective researches are essential to support our results and explain the underlying mechanisms.