Telomere length and early severe social deprivation: linking early adversity and cellular aging (original) (raw)
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Stress-related telomere length in children: A systematic review
Journal of Psychiatric Research, 2017
Telomeres are repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of chromatids that shorten following each cell replication. Once telomeres reach a critical length, DNA defense mechanisms can direct cells to either a state of arrest (senescence) or apoptosis. Stress induced by adversity is a probable cause of accelerated telomere shortening from an early age. However, few studies have examined the association between stress and telomere length in children, and it remains unclear whether young individuals may show signs of cellular aging early in life. Our aim was to examine whether adversity in childhood is associated with shortening of telomere length. We conducted a systematic review of studies that investigated the association between stress and telomere length in children from 3 to 15 years of age. Eleven studies met our selection criteria. We concluded that adversity in childhood (such as violence, low socioeconomic status, maternal depression, family disruption, and institutionalization) have an impact on telomere length. This suggests that exposed individuals show signs of accelerated erosion of telomeric ends from an early age. We discuss whether telomere shortening is related to negative health outcomes later in life or could be a biomarker predicting health outcomes. We believe that further large-scale longitudinal studies that repeatedly monitor telomere length are very important for providing a better assessment of telomere trajectory in psychologically stressed children. This will verify the extent to which adversity impacts upon the biological development of cell aging in childhood.
Telomeres and Early-Life Stress: An Overview
Biological Psychiatry, 2013
The long-term sequelae of adverse early-life experiences have long been a focus in psychiatry, with a historic neurobiological emphasis on physiological systems that are demonstrably stressresponsive, such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and neuroimmune function. However, there has been increasing recognition in the general medical literature that such sequelae might encompass more pervasive alterations in health status and physiology. Recent findings in telomere biology have suggested a new avenue for exploring the adverse health effects of childhood maltreatment. Telomere length in proliferative tissues declines with cell replication, and the effect can be accelerated by such factors as inflammation, oxidative stress, radiation, and toxins. Reduced telomere length, as a proxy for cellular aging, has been associated with numerous chronic somatic diseases that are generally considered to be diseases of aging, such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. More recently, shorter telomeres have been demonstrated in several psychiatric conditions, particularly depression. Sustained psychosocial stress of a variety of types in adulthood appears to be associated with shorter telomeres. Now, emerging work suggests a robust, and perhaps dose-dependent, relationship with early-life stress. These findings present new opportunities to re-conceptualize the complex relationships between experience, physical and psychiatric disease, and aging.
Early-life stress, such as maltreatment, institutionalization, and exposure to violence, is associated with accelerated telomere shortening. Telomere shortening may thus represent a biomarker of early adversity. Previous studies have suggested that responsive parenting may protect children from the negative biological and behavioral consequences of early adversity. This study examined the role of parental responsiveness in buffering children from telomere shortening following experiences of early-life stress. We found that high-risk children had significantly shorter telomeres than low-risk children, controlling for household income, birth weight, gender, and minority status. Further, parental responsiveness moderated the association between risk and telomere length, with more responsive parenting associated with longer telomeres only among high-risk children. These findings suggest that responsive parenting may have protective benefits on telomere shortening for young children exposed to early-life stress. Therefore, this study has important implications for early parenting interventions.
Ageing research reviews, 2018
Numerous studies examine the relationship between social stressors and telomere length (TL). Beyond considering methods and major findings, this scoping systematic review takes a novel approach as it groups studies according to the types of social stressor considered and by age groups. Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Scopus. We included all English-language human subject research articles that modeled any measure of TL as a dependent variable and exposure to a social stressor as an independent variable. For the sample of 105 articles, we summarized methods and findings by type of social stressor (socioeconomic stressors, stressful life events, work-related stressors, and neighborhood stressors) and by age of the study population (infants/children, middle-aged adults, older adults, and mixed samples of middle-aged and older adults). We found more variation in TL measurement methodology in studies of infants/children and older adults than i...
The Relationship Between Childhood Psychosocial Stressor Level and Telomere Length: A Meta-Analysis
Health psychology research, 2017
This meta-analysis examined the association between the level of childhood psychosocial stressors and telomere length, an important health biomarker. The meta-analysis, including 27 samples and 16,238 participants, found a significant association of -0.08 between a higher level of childhood stressors and shorter telomere length at a mean age of 42 across studies. Moderator analyses showed a trend in the direction of effect sizes being significantly larger with shorter times between the stressors and telomere measurement. Moderator analyses showed significantly higher effect sizes for studies that used a categorical method for assessing child stressor level and for assays completed with qPCR rather than with the Southern blot method. There was no significant moderation of effect size by whether study assayed leukocytes or buccal cells, whether the study assessed child stressor level by memory-based recall versus archival records, and whether the study controlled for age, sex, or addi...
Infant-caregiver experiences alter telomere length in the brain
PloS one, 2014
Following adverse childhood experiences, high quality maternal care can protect against accelerated telomere shortening in peripheral cells. It is less clear, however, how telomere length in the brain is influenced by early caregiving experiences. Using rats, we investigated if quality of care (i.e., aversive or nurturing care outside of the homecage) during the first seven days of postnatal (PN) life affected telomere length in the adult brain (PN90) of male and female rats. At PN90, we found that nurturing care outside of the homecage was associated with longer telomeres in the medial prefrontal cortex relative to nurturing care inside the homecage (i.e., normal maternal care) and aversive care outside of the homecage. Further, pups exposed to aversive care outside of the homecage demonstrated longer telomeres in the amygdala relative to pups exposed to nurturing care inside the homecage. These effects were specific to females. No differences in telomere length between caregiving ...
Systematic Reviews, 2014
Background: The effects of stress on ill health have become evident in recent years. Under acute stress situations, a cascade of physiological events helps the body mount an appropriate adaptive response. However, under chronic stress situations, this physiological response may lead to wear and tear on the body that accelerates the decline in physiological functioning and increases the risk of chronic conditions. Recent evidence for social stress experienced during childhood suggests serious consequences many years later, even later life. Telomere length, a marker of cell aging, may provide a link between chronic social stress and age-associated physical and mental decline and risk of chronic conditions. This study examines whether chronic social stress is associated with telomere length throughout the life course. Methods/Design: We will perform a systematic review of the literature on the relationship between chronic social stress, for example, due to violence, extreme poverty, or caregiving of people with disabling conditions (exposure), and telomere length (outcome) by searching electronic databases in MEDLINE (PubMed interface), EMBASE (OVID interface), Cochrane Central (OVID interface) and gray literature from their start date onwards. We will limit the search to studies performed on human populations. Two reviewers will conduct standardized screening, eligibility assessment, data abstraction, and scientific quality assessment. All study designs investigating the association between chronic social stress and telomere length in healthy or diseased adults and children will be eligible for inclusion in the review. We will extract individual demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, research setting, method of measuring telomere length, reported outcome, and determinants of interest. Studies will also be stratified by 1) age into 3 groups: childhood (0 to 18 years), adulthood (19 to 64 years) and late life (65+); 2) cell type; 3) study design; and 4) telomere length assessment method. Where feasible, study results will be combined through meta-analyses to obtain a pooled measure of associations. Results will be reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement. Discussion: This systematic review will provide knowledge on the existing evidence for chronic social stress and its association with telomere lengths throughout the life course.
No association between mean telomere length and life stress observed in a 30 year birth cohort
PloS one, 2014
Telomeres are specialised structures that cap the ends of chromosomes. They shorten with each cell division and have been proposed as a marker of cellular aging. Previous studies suggest that early life stressors increase the rate of telomere shortening with potential impact on disease states and mortality later in life. This study examined the associations between telomere length and exposure to a number of stressors that arise during development from the antenatal/perinatal period through to young adulthood. Participants were from the Christchurch Health and Development Study (CHDS), a New Zealand longitudinal birth cohort which has followed participants from birth until age 30. Telomere length was obtained on DNA from peripheral blood samples collected from consenting participants (n = 677) at age 28-30, using a quantitative PCR assay. These data were assessed for associations with 26 measures of life course adversity or stress which occurred prior to 25 years of age. No associat...
The Association of Telomere Length With Family Violence and Disruption
PEDIATRICS, 2014
To enhance the understanding of biological mechanisms connecting early adversity and negative health, we examine the association between family interpersonal violence and disruption and telomere length in youth. These specific exposures were selected because of their established links with negative health consequences across the life-course. Children, age 5 to 15, were recruited from the greater New Orleans area, and exposure to family disruption and violence was assessed through caregiver report. Telomere length, from buccal cell DNA (buccal telomere length [bTL]), was determined by using monochrome multiplex quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The association between bTL and adversity exposure was tested (n = 80). Cumulative exposure to interpersonal violence and family disruption was correlated with bTL. Controlling for other sociodemographic factors, bTL was significantly shorter in children with higher exposure to family violence and disruption. Witnessing family violence exerted a particularly potent impact. A significant gender interaction was found (β = -0.0086, SE = 0.0031, z test= -2.79, P = .0053) and analysis revealed the effect only in girls. bTL is a molecular biomarker of adversity and allostatic load that is detectable in childhood. The present results extend previous studies by demonstrating that telomeres are sensitive to adversity within the overarching family domain. These findings suggest that the family ecology may be an important target for interventions to reduce the biological impact of adversity in the lives of children.