Traumatic Events in Childhood Linked to Shorter Telomeres
Telomeres are bits of DNA at the end of chromosomes that protect the DNA as it replicates. Shorter telomeres have been linked to aging and increases in multiple types of medical and psychiatric disorders. A 2016 article in PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, reported that cumulative life adversity and particularly stressful or traumatic events in childhood, predict shorter telomere length.
The study by Eli Puterman and colleagues included 4,590 individuals from the US Health and Retirement Study who reported stressful events that had experienced. A single experience of adversity was not linked to short telomeres, but lifetime cumulative adversity predicted 6% greater odds of having shorter telomeres. This result was mainly explained by adversity that occurred in childhood. Each stressful or traumatic event in childhood increased the odds of short telomeres by 11%. These were mostly social or traumatic experiences rather than financial stresses.
