Associação entre a rede de apoio social e o comprimento dos telômeros em idosos

Abstract

Introduction: Social support has been considered an important determinant of health and disease among the elderly and, although telomere length is a promising biomarker of aging, studies that analyze the relationship between social support and telomere length are scarce in the literature. Considering that telomere length can be determined not only by issues related to cell biology, but also by aspects related to social factors and environmental exposures, studies on the relationship between social aspects and telomere length can help to better understand the still little known aspects of the human aging process. Objective: to analyze the association between the social support network and the length of telomeres in elderly people. Method: This is a quantitative study with an analytical cross-sectional design, conducted with 448 individuals aged 60 years or older, living in the urban area of a municipality in the south of Minas Gerais State. Data collection was performed in two stages. In the first stage, a personal interview was performed and blood collection was performed in the second one. The blood sample was used for the relative quantification of telomere size by real-time qPCR. It was used a questionnaire containing questions about sociodemographic aspects, general health condition, characteristics of the social network and the Social Support Scale of the Medical Outcomes Study, to conduct the interviews. Descriptive statistics and multiple logistic regression were used in the data analysis. The project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Alfenas with opinion number 2,668,936. Results: The social support networks of the elderly evaluated are composed, on average, of 16.4 people, and the average number of family members is higher than that of friends. Furthermore, the percentage of elderly who reported up to five members in the network was 27.75%. Most of the elderly reported an average level of material, affective support, positive social interaction and emotional/information support. Elderly who reported not having a partner, live alone, have depressive symptoms and with a network composed of up to five people have a higher proportion of low level of all types of support in relation to the proportion of medium and/or high levels. The low telomere length was identified in 25% of the participants, and elderly people who reported having up to five members in the support network were more likely to have a low telomere length than those who reported more numerous networks, regardless of gender, age, home arrangement, cognitive decline and dependence for basic and instrumental activities of daily living. Conclusion: There is an association between the number of members of the social support network and telomere length among the evaluated elderly. Networks composed of up to five members are associated with the low length of the telomere, which suggests that measures that stimulate the creation and maintenance of social support networks should be implemented in order to improve the health of the elderly.