Chronic Pain and Telomere Length in Community-Dwelling Adults: Findings From the 1999 to 2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Chronic pain is a common condition associated with psychological distress, functional impairments, and age-associated comorbidity. Preliminary studies, on the basis of relatively small sample sizes, suggest that the combination of chronic pain and stress is associated with telomere shortening, a widely recognized marker of cellular aging. We sought to determine the cross-sectional association of chronic pain with telomere length in 7,816...