It has been hypothesized that one way in which lower socioeconomic status (SES) affects health is by increasing the rate of biological aging. A widely used marker of biological aging is telomere length. Telomeres are structures at the ends of chromosomes that erode with increasing cell proliferation and genetic damage. We aimed to identify, through systematic review and meta-analysis, whether lower SES (greater deprivation) is associated with shorter telomeres. Thirty-one articles, including 29 study populations, were identified. We conducted 3 meta-analyses to compare the telomere lengths of persons of high and low SES with regard to contemporaneous SES (12 study populations from 10 individual articles), education (15 study populations from 14 articles), and childhood SES (2 study populations from 2 articles). For education, there was a significant difference in telomere length between persons of high and low SES in a random-effects model (standardized mean difference (SMD) = 0.060, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.002, 0.118; P = 0.042), although a range of sensitivity analyses weakened this association. There was no evidence for an association between telomere length and contemporaneous SES (SMD = 0.104, 95% CI: -0.027, 0.236; P = 0.119) or childhood SES (SMD = -0.037, 95% CI: -0.143, 0.069; P = 0.491). These results suggest weak evidence for an association between SES (as measured by education) and biological aging (as measured by telomere length), although there was a lack of consistent findings across the SES measures investigated here.

中文翻译：

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端粒长度衡量的社会经济地位是否与生物衰老相关？

据推测，较低的社会经济地位 (SES) 影响健康的一种方式是增加生物衰老的速度。广泛使用的生物衰老标记是端粒长度。端粒是染色体末端的结构，随着细胞增殖和遗传损伤的增加而受到侵蚀。我们的目的是通过系统回顾和荟萃分析来确定较低的 SES（更大的剥夺）是否与较短的端粒相关。确定了 31 篇文章，包括 29 个研究人群。我们进行了 3 项荟萃分析，以比较同期 SES（来自 10 篇文章的 12 个研究人群）、教育（来自 14 篇文章的 15 个研究人群）和儿童 SES（2 个研究人群）的高 SES 和低 SES 人群的端粒长度来自 2 篇文章）。对于教育，在随机效应模型中，高 SES 和低 SES 的人之间的端粒长度存在显着差异（标准化均值差 (SMD) = 0.060，95% 置信区间 (CI)：0.002、0.118；P = 0.042），尽管一系列敏感性分析削弱了这种关联。没有证据表明端粒长度与同期 SES（SMD = 0.104，95% CI：-0.027，0.236；P = 0.119）或儿童 SES（SMD = -0.037，95% CI：-0.143，0.069；P = 0.491）。这些结果表明 SES（通过教育衡量）和生物衰老（通过端粒长度衡量）之间关联的证据不足，尽管此处调查的 SES 措施缺乏一致的发现。