SP668
THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN SERUM MAGNESIUM AND TELOMERE LENTH IN HEMODIALYSIS PATIENTS Free

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: Telomere Length (TL) is considered to be a biological marker for aging. Telomere shortening is associated with age-related health outcomes and risk of death. A low sMg has been associated with worse clinical outcomes in both the general and HD populations. Here, we investigated the associations between sMg and TL in HD patients.

METHODS: Forty six HD patients, 28 men and 18 women were studied. TL was measured from leukocyte DNA using a realtime PCR method to measure T/S ratio, the ratio of telomere (T) to single copy gene (S) sequence. TL was analyzed both as a dichotomous: above (High TL group) and below (Low TL group) the median value of T/S ratio (1.13) and continuous variable. sMg values were defined as the mean of all predialysis measurements available during the preceding 3 months.

RESULTS: Patients in the high TL group were younger in age (56±14 vs. 70±9 years; p<0.001), had higher sMg (2.6±0.2 vs. 2.3±0.3; P<0.001) and lower PP (58±14 vs. 68±14 mmHg; p=<0.05), prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) (8.7 vs. 34.8 %; p<0.05) and peripheral vascular disease (PVD) (30.4 vs. 65.2%; p<0.05). Logistic regression analysis, after adjusting for age, PP, DM and PVD, showed that sMg was associated with longer TL (OR=65.6, 95%CI: 1.4-3010; p=0.032). The area under the ROC curve for predicting patients with longer TL was 0.799 (p<0.001) and at an optimal sMg cutoff of 2.45mg/dl the sensitivity and specificity of sMg in predicting the occurrence of α longer TL were 73.9% and 73.9%, respectively. TL, when analyzed as continuous variable, was directly associated with sMg (r=0.454; p<0.01) and a forward stepwise multivariate analysis (R²= 0.538; p<0.001) showed that TL (β=0.147; p<0.05), along with sex (female) and age, emerged as a major determinant of TL, explaining about 8.8 % of its variance.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that a higher sMg is associated with longer TL in HD patients. Further studies are needed to determine whether manipulation of sMg in HD patients can maintain TL and thus, extend their life span.