Telomere Length Associations With Clinical Diagnosis, Age, and Polygenic Risk Scores for Anxiety Disorder, Depression, and Bipolar Disorder

Abstract

Accelerated biological ageing might contribute to the lower life expectancy of individuals with mental disorders. The aim of this study was to characterise telomere length, a biological hallmark of ageing, in individuals with mental disorders. The UK Biobank is a multicentre community-based observational study that recruited >500,000 middle-aged and older adults. Average leukocyte telomere length (T/S ratio) was measured using quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Polygenic risk scores (PRS) were calculated for individuals of European ancestry. We estimated differences in T/S ratio between individuals with anxiety disorder, depression or bipolar disorder and people without mental disorders and examined associations with psychotropic medication use, age and PRS for these three disorders. The analyses included up to 308,725 participants. Individuals with depression had shorter telomeres than people without mental disorders (β = -0.011, 95% CI -0.019 to -0.004, pBonf. = 0.027). Associations between bipolar disorder and telomere length differed by lithium use. There was limited evidence that individuals with anxiety disorder had shorter telomeres. Associations between age and telomere length did not differ between individuals with and without these disorders. PRS for depression, but not anxiety disorder or bipolar disorder, were associated with shorter telomeres (β = -0.006, 95% CI -0.010 to -0.003, pBonf. = 0.001). Differences in telomere length were observed primarily for individuals with depression or bipolar disorder and in individuals with a higher polygenic risk score for depression. There was no evidence that the association between age and telomere length differed between individuals with and without anxiety disorder, depression or bipolar disorder.

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