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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Sep 30.
Published in final edited form as: JAMA. 2013 Feb 20;309(7):699–705. doi: 10.1001/jama.2013.613

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Association of CD8CD28− Telomere Length and Infection With Increasing Age. Ratio of telomere to single-copy gene amounts (T:S ratio) used as an index of average telomere length. Age is presented in tertiles in the figure to facilitate interpretation. Error bars indicate 95% CIs. Odds ratios (ORs) can be interpreted as the increase in the odds of infection with each 1-SD decrease in telomere length. Each age group was analyzed in a separate logistic regression analysis that included the following control variables: prechallenge viral-specific antibody titer, body mass index, age, race, sex/contraceptive use (men, women taking contraceptives, women not taking contraceptives), season of exposure, and days between blood draw for telomere assay and viral challenge. Conversion of ORs to relative risks (RRs) using the formula of Zhang & Yu20 and setting the infection rate for the unexposed group equal to that of the quartile of longest CD8CD28− telomere length (ie, 50%) yields RR, 0.75 (95% CI, 0.25–1.49) for 18- to 22-year-olds; RR, 1.65 (95% CI, 1.13–1.91) for 23- to 29-year-olds; and RR, 1.76 (95% CI, 1.21–2.04) for 30- to 55-year-olds.