Fazzini F, Lamina C, Raschenberger J, et al. - A large cohort of patients suffering from chronic kidney disease stage G3 and A1-3 or G1-2 with overt proteinuria (A3) at enrollment was investigated to determine the link between relative telomere length and mortality in this sample. An ongoing prospective observational cohort, the German Chronic Kidney Disease (GCKD) study, was used to select 4,955 patients in whom the quantification of relative telomere length in peripheral blood was done by employing a quantitative PCR method. In a model adjusted for age, gender, baseline estimated glomerular filtration rate, urine albumin/creatinine ratio, diabetes mellitus, prevalent cardiovascular disease, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, smoking, BMI, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, C-reactive protein and serum albumin, each reduction of 0.1 relative telomere length unit was shown to be highly related to a 14% increased risk of mortality. This translated to a 75% greater risk for those in the lowest vs the highest quartile of relative telomere length. Overall, in this patient population with moderate chronic kidney disease, the observations lend support to a link of shorter telomere length with all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality and death attributable to infections.