FLICKR; THOMAS RIED, NCIMultiple stressful events during childhood may have a greater impact on telomere length in adulthood compared to stressful events faced during adulthood. While the accumulation of stressful events throughout life increases the chance of having shorter telomeres later in life, adversities experienced during childhood appeared to have the greatest effect on these chromosome caps, according to a study published today (October 3) in PNAS. Each additional adverse event during childhood was associated with an 11 percent-increased odd of shorter telomeres—a marker of cellular aging—past age 50, the authors reported.
The findings “offer new insights into what types of stressors may potentially be most harmful in impacting biological aging markers,” Judith Carroll, who studies the links between behavior and health at the University of California, Los Angeles, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and was not involved in the work, wrote in an email to The Scientist. “The findings are consistent with other reports suggesting that early life is a particularly vulnerable time when the body is rapidly growing and adapting to its surroundings.”
“A strength and novelty of this study is that the authors were able to investigate the cumulative effect of different kinds of stressful events across the whole lifespan of the participants,” wrote Iiris Hovatta of the University of Helsinki, Finland, ...
