Childhood Adversities Are Associated with Shorter Telomere Length at Adult Age both in Individuals with an Anxiety Disorder and Controls

Abstract

Accelerated leukocyte telomere shortening has been previously associated to self-perceived stress and psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and mood disorders. We set out to investigate whether telomere length is affected in patients with anxiety disorders in which stress is a known risk factor. We also studied the effects of childhood and recent psychological distress on telomere length. We utilized samples from the nationally representative population-based Health 2000 Survey that was carried out between 2000–2001 in Finland to assess major public health problems and their determinants. We measured the relative telomere length of the peripheral blood cells by quantitative real-time PCR from 321 individuals with DSM-IV anxiety disorder or subthreshold diagnosis and 653 matched controls aged 30–87 years, who all had undergone the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. While telomere length did not differ significantly between cases and controls in the entire cohort, the older half of the anxiety disorder patients (48–87 years) exhibited significantly shorter telomeres than healthy controls of the same age (P = 0.013). Interestingly, shorter telomere length was also associated with a greater number of reported childhood adverse life events, among both the anxiety disorder cases and controls (P = 0.005). Childhood chronic or serious illness was the most significantly associated single event affecting telomere length at the adult age (P = 0.004). Self-reported current psychological distress did not affect telomere length. Our results suggest that childhood stress might lead to accelerated telomere shortening seen at the adult age. This finding has potentially important implications supporting the view that childhood adversities might have a considerable impact on well being later in life.

Analysis of telomere length in couples experiencing idiopathic recurrent pregnancy loss

“…Telomere shortening has been reported in many diseases such as diabetes [20], hypertension [21,22], dementia [23] infections and inflammation [24], and psychological stress [25][26][27][28]. Further, telomere shortening has also been reported in many types of cancer due to rapid cell proliferation [29].…”

Genetic and Environmental Effects on Telomere Length and Lung Function: A Twin Study

“…LTL was determined from peripheral blood DNA by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), as described in Ahola et al (18), with slight modifications (19). Briefly, as a single-copy reference gene, β-hemoglobin was used.…”

Leukocyte telomere length and its relation to food and nutrient intake in an elderly population

“…Relative telomere length from peripheral blood DNA was determined by a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction-based method previously described by Cawthon et al 27 and Kananen et al, 28 with modifications described in detail by Hovatta et al 29 Briefly, polymerase chain reaction reactions were performed separately for telomere reaction and a single copy reference gene, b-hemoglobin, reaction in paired 384-well plates. A synthetic oligomer dilution series, hgb-120-mer and tel14x (0.0002, 0.002, 0.02, 0.2, 1.0, 3.0 and 6.0 pg), were included on every plate to create reaction-specific standard curves.…”