Washington D.C. [USA], Nov 6 (ANI): Violence, psychological or emotional abuse, deprivation, neglect, and other adverse childhood experiences can affect both, epigenetic, or cellular aging, and biological development, a recent study suggests.
The study links violence exposure in childhood with accelerated aging and demonstrates that different forms of adversity during childhood have different impacts on the aging process. Children who suffer abuse are more likely to age faster. The study also suggests that those who endure food insecurity may develop more slowly.
“Exposure to violence in childhood accelerates biological aging in children as young as eight-years-old,” said Katie McLaughlin, lead author of the study.
“Our findings suggest that some forms of early adversity accelerate the aging process beginning very early in life, which may contribute to the high rates of health problems commonly observed among children who experience adversity,” McLaughlin added. The study was published in the Journal of Biological Psychiatry.
Nearly 250 children and teens, ages 8 to 16, participated in the study. Through child and parent interviews and surveys, as well as saliva samples for DNA analysis, researchers determined the number and type of adverse life events each child had experienced, along with the stages of puberty they had entered. The researchers examined the associations between types of adversity with epigenetic, or cellular, age, and pubertal development.
The study found that participants with higher exposure to violence exhibited an older epigenetic or cellular age as well as more advanced pubertal development than what would be expected given the child’s chronological age. In other words, children and teens who suffered abuse were developing faster than those who had not. These relationships were not explained by differences in race or ethnicity or socioeconomic status, which also have been related to the early onset of puberty.
Life history theory, the paper points out, suggests that humans and other living organisms who are exposed to threats at a young age might react biologically by maturing faster to reach reproductive maturity. Girls, for example, might start menstruating at a younger age. At the same time, the theory holds, the bodies of young people who live in deprived environments respond by conserving resources and delaying reproductive development. The new study is consistent with that theory, the authors write.
In addition, the researchers looked at potential links of cellular aging and pubertal development with symptoms of depression. The study found that accelerated epigenetic aging was associated with higher levels of depression, and helped to explain the association between exposure to violence and depressive symptoms.
Among adults, accelerated epigenetic age has been linked to cancer, cardiovascular conditions, obesity, and cognitive decline. And the early onset of puberty has been associated with negative health outcomes later in life. Researchers are exploring whether interventions with these young people, while they’re young, affect their health as adults.
“Accelerated epigenetic age and the pubertal stage could be used to identify youth who are developing faster than expected given their chronological age and who might benefit from intervention. The pubertal stage is an especially useful marker because it is easy and inexpensive to assess by health care providers, and could be used to identify youth who may need more intensive health services,” McLaughlin said. [source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]