Stronger Association between Insomnia Symptoms and Shorter Telomere Length in Old HIV-Infected Patients Compared with Uninfected Individuals

Growing evidence suggests that HIV infection may accelerate biological aging. Insomnia symptoms, particularly in later life, exacerbate cellular aging. We examined the association between insomnia symptoms and leukocyte telomere length (LTL), and further explored how this association was affected by HIV serostatus and age. Data were assessed from 244 HIV-infected individuals ≥40 years and 244 HIV-uninfected individuals who were frequency-matched by age, gender and education level. Insomnia symptoms were assessed by responses to four sleep-related questions covering the past month. We performed multivariable linear regression with logarithmically transformed LTL and reported exponentiated coefficients. HIV-infected individuals had shorter LTL compared to uninfected individuals (geometric mean 0.82 vs 0.89, P=0.052), and this association remained after adjustment for gender, education level, and smoking history (-7.4%, P=0.051) but markedly attenuated after additional adjustment for insomnia and depressive symptoms (-3.7%, P=0.367). Significant interactions between age group (55-82 vs 40-54 years) and insomnia symptoms on LTL were observed in the HIV-infected individuals (-28.4%, P=0.033) but not the uninfected (-17.9%, P=0.250). After stratifying by age group, LTL was independently associated with insomnia symptoms in those 55 years and older among the HIV-infected individuals (-24.5%, P=0.026) but not those 40-54 years old (-9.8%, P=0.428). Our findings suggest that elevated insomnia and depressive symptoms may partly explain the correlation between HIV serostatus and shorter LTL. Significant association between insomnia and shorter LTL observed in elderly HIV-infected but not in uninfected individuals suggest that such adverse effect may begin at an earlier age or is more pronounced in HIV-infected individuals but requires further investigation.