Metabolically healthy obese women have longer telomere length than obese women with metabolic syndrome

INTRODUCTION: Obesity is the principal component in the Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) that determines the progression of metabolic complications. Metabolically healthy obese (MHO) individuals seem to be protected against those complications. Telomere length (TL) as a novel marker of cellular aging had a complex relationship to the MetS. The principal aim of this study was to investigate the TL in MHO, and to study the association between TL and the worsening of the metabolic condition. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We have determined the absolute TL (aTL) in 400 women (mean age of 46.76 ± 15.47 years; range: 18–86 years), grouped according to the metabolic condition in three groups: metabolically healthy non-obese women (MHNO), MHO and obese women with MetS (MSO); and grouped according to the number of components of MetS. RESULTS: We found that MHO displays significantly higher aTL than MSO (p = 0.033; r = -4.63; 95% CI r = -8.89 / -0.37), but did not differ from MHNO. A decrease in aTL with the progressive increase in the number of MetS components was also observed (p < 0.001; r = -2.06; 95% CI r = -3.13 / -0.99). In this way, our results indicate that aTL is influenced by the presence of MetS, but it is not affected by the presence of obesity. DISCUSSION: We found that shorter aTL is not associated with MHO, but is related to MetS and with the increased number of metabolic abnormalities.