Low intake of vitamin E accelerates cellular aging in patients with established cardiovascular disease: The CORDIOPREV study.

Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) shortening is a biomarker of cellular aging that can be decelerated by diet. We aimed to investigate the effect of dietary intake of vitamin E on biomarkers of cellular senescence in patients with established cardiovascular disease. To this end, DNA from 1,002 participants of the CORDIOPREV study (NCT00924937) was isolated and LTL was measured by real-time PCR. Dietary information was collected using a 146-item food frequency questionnaire, and several oxidative stress and damage biomarkers were determined. We found that patients with an inadequate intake of vitamin E according to the European Food Safety Authority, U.S. Food and Nutrition Board, and Spanish dietary recommendation had shorter LTL than those with an adequate intake (p=.004, p=.015, and p=.005, respectively). Moreover, we observed a positive correlation between olive oil, fish consumption and LTL (r(2)=.083, p=.010; r(2)=.090, p=.006, respectively). Subjects who consumed more than 30 mL olive oil/day had longer LTL than subjects with lower consumption (p=.013). Furthermore, we observed higher glutathione peroxidase activity in subjects consuming less vitamin E (p=.031). Our findings support the importance of an adequate consumption of the antioxidant vitamin E, and the value of the diet as a modulating tool of the senescence process.