Telomere length in patients with anorexia nervosa

Patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) experience substantial physical and psychological stress exerted on the body as part of the condition. Telomere length (TL) provides a measure of normal biological ageing that can be further reduced by additional stressors. We sought to test the following hypotheses: (1) TL is reduced in patients with AN compared to healthy controls, and (2) TL is reduced with increasing duration of illness. For this cross-sectional study, we assessed TL in whole blood DNA collected from patients with AN (n ​= ​23; 21 females; mean age 30.3 years, SD 13.1) and age- and sex-matched healthy controls (n ​= ​33; 32 females, mean age 30.6 years, SD 12.2) using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Clinical characteristics were obtained. Our results indicate that TL is significantly longer in patients with AN compared to healthy controls, both before and after adjusting for age, sex, level of educational attainment, smoking status, body mass index and antipsychotic use. TL was not associated with duration of illness after adjusting for age. Contrary to our hypotheses, our results indicate that TL does not reflect accelerated biological ageing in patients with AN. Further investigation may identify the reason for increased TL in those with AN. •Patients with anorexia nervosa have significantly longer telomeres in comparison to healthy controls.•Results remained statistically significant after adjusting for covariates.•Telomere length was not associated with duration of illness.