Franny Jongbloed

151 6 MORBID OBESITY, BARIATRIC SURGERY AND T-CELL AGING >50 years with or without MetS, however a large dispersion in interquartile ranges was seen in both groups. No significant differences were seen in CD8 + RTL in either the different MetS (Figure 1D), age (Figure 1E) or combined MetS and age (Figure 1F) groups. These results demonstrate that MetS enhances telomere attrition in the CD4 + compartment, with most pronounced changes in the younger patients. CMV-related attrition of telomeres was only observed within the CD4 + , but not the CD8 + T-cell compartment of morbidly obese patients without MetS ( P= 0.03). In a multivariate analysis including MetS, age, CMV- seropositivity and gender none of these were independent factors for RTL in both CD4 + and CD8 + T-cells (Table S1). T-cell aging is partially reversed following bariatric surgery Up to 12 months after surgery, a significant decrease in CD4 + RTE was observed, which was most significant between time points zero and six months (Table 3). No differences were seen for these RTE within the CD8 + T-cell compartment for the total obesity, no MetS and the MetS groups (Table 3). A decrease in both EM and CD28null differentiated T-cells was noted for in CD4 + T-cells in the total obesity group (Table 3). Pairwise comparisons revealed the most significant decrease in the period between zero to six months postoperatively. Comparison of the groups with and without MetS, the decrease in CD28null CD4 + T-cells remained significant in the MetS group only. A decrease in CD8 + T-cell differentiation was reflected by a significant increase in CM and a decrease in EM T-cells. A trend towards decrease was seen for both EMRA and CD28null CD8 + T-cells. Upon dissection of the morbidly obese patients into the no MetS and MetS group, a trend towards lower numbers of CD8 + EMRA T-cells was observed for the MetS group (Table 3). Relative telomere length restores in the first months after bariatric surgery Telomere attrition seemed to restore following bariatric surgery in morbidly obese patients with MetS up to six months after surgery, with a significant increase in RTL between zero and three months postoperatively. However, a shortening was observed at 12 months postoperatively with an overall significant effect between zero and 12 months ( P= 0.02) (Figure 2A). Comparison between individual time points showed a significant increased directionality in CD4 + RTL within the first three months after surgery, however a decline in RTL was shown at the later time points, of which the decrease between three and 12 months remained significant after adjusting ( P= 0.04).