The Association between Vascular Injury Inflammatory Markers and Telomere Length.

Separate linear mixed models were used for each inflammatory marker. Models controlled for white blood cell count, neutrophil %, lymphocyte %, monocyte %, eosinophil %, current smoking intensity (cigarettes per day), age at baseline blood draw (years), BMI (log kg/m2), and years as a boilermaker (log years). Main effects were log-transformed to achieve a normal distribution.*p-values below the Bonferroni-adjusted α-level of 0.013 were considered statistically significant. The estimate for the main effect represents the difference in telomere length per incremental ng/mL increase in the inflammatory marker at any follow-up time, controlling for other predictors. The estimate for follow-up time represents the rate of telomeric change; the difference in telomere length per day of follow-up when all other predictors are at zero. The estimate for the main effect x follow-up time interaction represents effect modification of the rate of telomeric change by the inflammatory marker; the change in telomere length per ng/mL increase in the inflammatory marker over each day of follow-up time, holding other predictors constant. 95% Confidence Intervals (95%CI) are the bounds in which with more independent samplings, the true estimate will fall within this range in 95% of those samplings.