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Summary: Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is associated with obesity and may be involved in its aetiology, but few studies have focused on children and most have been cross‐sectional. We assessed the relation of LTL with adiposity development in a prospective study of Colombian children. We quantified LTL at enrollment in 722 children aged 5–12 years and measured anthropometry annually for a median 6 years. Using mixed effects models, we estimated changes in adiposity measures including BMI and waist circumference (WC)‐for‐age z‐scores in relation to baseline LTL z‐score. In girls, longer LTL was linearly related to a lower increase in WC z‐score from age 6 to 16 years. Every 1 SD LTL was associated with an adjusted 0.13 units lower increase in WC (95% CI: −0.23, −0.03; p = 0.01). In conclusion, longer LTL among girls in middle childhood is associated with smaller increases in WC, an indicator of abdominal adiposity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is a biomarker of inflammation and oxidative stress that predicts chronic disease risk. Nutritional factors are related to LTL in adulthood, but these associations are not well characterized in children. We examined whether micronutrient status biomarkers were associated with LTL in school-age children. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 330 boys and 393 girls aged 5–12 years from Bogotá, Colombia. We quantified blood concentrations of hemoglobin, ferritin, zinc, vitamin A, folate, and vitamin B-12; and measured LTL using qPCR in DNA extracted from buffy coat. We estimated mean differences in LTL by quartiles of micronutrient status biomarkers and categories of relevant sociodemographic and anthropometric covariates with the use of linear regression. Results: In girls, plasma vitamin B-12 was positively associated with LTL (adjusted LTL difference between extreme vitamin B-12 quartiles = 0.11; P, trend = 0.02). LTL was also positively associated with birth order in girls (P, trend = 0.02). In boys, LTL was not related to the micronutrient status biomarkers but, unexpectedly, it was positively associated with birth weight (P = 0.02), height-for-age Z score (P, trend = 0.01), and serum C-reactive protein (P, trend = 0.01). Conclusions: LTL is associated with vitamin B-12 status among girls. LTL is also associated with birth weight, height, and C-reactive protein in boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]