Paper on cancer and telomere length
A paper by Dr. Stefan Kiechl from the Medical University of Innsbruck describes that the probability of humans with shorter telomeres to developing cancer is three times higher within a period of ten years, and dying by it eleven times higher, than in humans with long telomeres. Kiechl assumes the reason for this is that shortened leucocyte telomeres can no longer control and fight the development of cancerous cells. Therefore he supposes that the telomere length is inversely proportionally linked to the risk of cancer - the shorter the telomeres, the higher the risk of cancer.
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20606151 JAMA. 2010 Jul 7;304(1):69-75.Telomere length and risk of incident cancer and cancer mortality. Willeit P, Willeit J, Mayr A, Weger S, Oberhollenzer F, Brandstätter A, Kronenberg F, Kiechl S.