Kids who experience violence are more likely to age faster, while, children exposed to adversity involving deprivation such as food insecurity and neglect age more slowly. The findings of the study are published in the journal Biological Psychiatry. Violence, psychological or emotional abuse, deprivation, and neglect adverse childhood experiences can affect both epigenetic or cellular, aging and biological development, the study finds. The new 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.
‘A new study shows that children who suffered from early life violence, accelerated epigenetic aging is linked to increased symptoms of depression.’
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"Exposure to violence in childhood accelerates biological aging in children as young as eight years old," said Katie McLaughlin, now an assistant professor at Harvard University who led the study while on the faculty of the UW Department of Psychology. Read More..
"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."
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.
Of the participants, about one-quarter said they had experienced sexual abuse, and about 42 percent had experienced physical abuse. Forms of deprivation were slightly less common in the study pool, for example About 16 percent said they had experienced food insecurity. In all, 48 percent of participants were girls, 61 percent were the youth of color, and 27 percent were low-income.
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/ethnicity or socioeconomic status, which also have been related to the early onset of puberty.
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Also, 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.
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"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-Eurekalert