A new study has surprised the medical world, finding that smoking does not shorten the length of telomeres — a marker at the end of our chromosomes that is widely accepted as an indicator of aging. This suggests that adult telomere length should be considered a static biomarker that changes relatively little during adult life. The authors emphasize that this does not lessen the evidence that smoking is bad for you.

This suggests that adult telomere length should be considered a static biomarker that changes relatively little during adult life.

The meta-analysis of 18 previously collected datasets led by researchers at Newcastle University is published in the Royal Society journal Open Science today.

The researchers chose to focus on smoking simply because there are more data available on the associations between smoking and telomere length than for any other unhealthy behaviour.

The study confirms that while smokers do indeed have shorter telomeres (as many previous studies have shown), importantly, there is no evidence that telomeres shorten faster in smokers compared to non-smokers, as would be predicted if smoking causes telomere shortening. The results suggest that smoking is not responsible for the shorter telomeres observed in adult smokers.

Professor Melissa Bateson from Newcastle University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences who led the study said: «The importance of this study is that it forces us to rethink the value of telomere length as a read-out of how our current lifestyles are affecting our bodies. We don’t dispute the abundant evidence that smoking is bad for you, but merely the evidence that telomere length is a good way of assessing the biological damage done by smoking and possibly, by extension, other unhealthy behaviours.»

This leads to the question of why then do smokers have shorter telomeres? The team of international researchers suggest that a plausible answer to this question is that both telomere shortening and smoking are made more likely by a third variable, possibly exposure to various forms of adversity in early life such as physical and emotional abuse. The Newcastle University team are continuing research into this area.

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