Patients with Schizophrenia Have Short Telomeres, Atypical Antipsychotics Increased Telomere Length in Animals
Telomeres sit at the end of DNA strands and shorten with each cell replication. A person’s percentage of short telomeres increases with aging. Telomeres also shorten with childhood adversity and as a function of number of depressive episodes.
In a recent study, researcher Kazuya Torimi found that telomeres in white cells were shorter in 42 patients with schizophrenia compared to 56 healthy control participants.
Torimi also treated mice with various antipsychotics for 2-week periods. Treatment with atypical antipsychotics, such as risperidone, olanzapine and aripiprazole, but not typical antipsychotics like haloperidol, elongated telomere length in the hippocampus. This probably occurred through effects on serotonin.
Torimi suggests that atypical antipsychotics improve negative symptoms in part through the modulation of telomere length.
Editor’s Note: Lithium has been found to increase telomere length in patients with bipolar disorder, and appears to do this through a direct effect on telomerase, an enzyme responsible for adding to telomere length. Short telomeres are associated with a large number of medical and psychiatric illnesses.
