The telomere length of peripheral blood cells is associated with the risk of ischemic stroke in Han population of northern China

Telomere length is closely related to the onset and prognosis of ischemic stroke. This study was to investigate the relationship between telomere length and the incidence of ischemic stroke in Han population of northern China. In the present study, 152 patients with ischemic stroke were selected as the case group, and 152 healthy persons were used as the control group. Detection of telomere length was done by real-time polymerase chain reaction after extraction of genomic DNA from peripheral venous blood. Our results showed that the telomere length of the patients in the case group was significantly lower than that of the control group (Z = -11.843, P