Prieto-Botella, DanielMartens, Dries S.Valera-Gran, DesiréeSubiza-Pérez, MikelTardón, AdoninaLozano Relaño, ManuelCasas, MaribelBustamante Pineda, MarionaJimeno-Romero, AlbaFernández-Somoano, AnaLlop, SabrinaVrijheid, MartineNawrot, Tim S.Navarrete-Muñoz, Eva-María2023-06-202023-06-202023Prieto-Botella D, Martens DS, Valera-Gran D, Subiza-Pérez M, Tardón A, Lozano M, et al. Sedentary behaviour and telomere length shortening during early childhood: evidence from the multicentre prospective INMA Cohort Study. IJERPH. 2023 Mar 2;20(6):5134. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph200651341661-7827http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57255Sedentary behaviour (SB) may be related to telomere length (TL) attrition due to a possible pro-inflammatory effect. This study examined the association between parent-reported sedentary behaviour (SB) and leukocyte TL at the age of 4 and telomere tracking from 4 to 8 years. In the Spanish birth cohort Infancia y Medio Ambiente (INMA) project, we analysed data from children who attended follow-up visits at age 4 (n = 669) and 8 (n = 530). Multiple robust regression models were used to explore the associations between mean daily hours of SB (screen time, other sedentary activities, and total SB) at 4 years categorised into tertiles and TL at 4 years and difference in TL rank between age 4 and 8, respectively. At the age of 4, the results showed that children with the highest screen time (1.6–5.0 h/day) had a shorter TL of −3.9% (95% CI: −7.4, −0.4; p = 0.03) compared with children in the lowest tertile (0.0–1.0 h/day). Between 4 and 8 years, a higher screen time (highest tertile group vs. lowest tertile) was associated with a decrease in the LTL rank of −1.9% (95% CI: −3.8, −0.1; p = 0.03) from 4 to 8 years. Children exposed to a higher screen time at 4 years were more prone to have shorter TL at 4 and between 4 and 8 years of age. This study supports the potential negative effect of SB during childhood on cellular longevity.application/pdfeng© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20065134LifestyleChildrenGeneticsScreen timeEpigeneticsCellular longevityinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess