Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Researchers from the University of California-San Francisco have discovered that preschoolers with oppositional defiant behavior are more likely to have shorter telomeres, a characteristic of cellular aging that is also linked to obesity, diabetes, and cancer.
In addition, the UCSF team identified maternal clinical depression as an independent predictor for shortened telomeres in young children. Dr. Janet Wojcicki, lead author of the study and an assistant professor in the university’s UCSF Department of Pediatrics, called the findings “the first steps in a new field aiming to understand early determinants of children’s telomeres.”
“There are not any studies yet that examine telomere length changes from birth to adulthood, so the long-term implications are unknown. In adults, however, short telomeres predict earlier onset of many diseases, and shorter telomere length likely tracks from childhood throughout life,” she added. The research was published Tuesday in the journal Translational Psychiatry.
Maternal depression may play a role in some cases
According to the researchers, telomeres are similar to the plastic tips found on shoelaces in that they cap off the end of a chromosome. They also keep the chromosome from losing any protein-coding DNA during cell division, and while they tend to shorten naturally as a person ages, research indicates that mental and physical stress accelerate the process.
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The study authors assessed telomere length in the white blood cells of low-income Latino kids, including 108 four-year-olds and 92 five-year-olds recruited at birth from a pair of hospitals in San Francisco. They also examined the telomeres of their mothers and screened for prenatal and postnatal maternal depression, as well as behavior problems in the youngsters.
They found that the children of mothers who were clinically depressed when their children were three years old had telomeres that were shorter than the children of non-depressed women at the time of the test. However, severe prenatal depression, depression during the first year post-birth, or milder depression-related symptoms were not related to children’s telomere length.
Among children with oppositional defiant behavior at ages three through five, shorter telomere length may be attributed in part to maternal depression, Dr. Wojcicki and her co-authors noted. Furthermore, they found that children with shorter telomere length tended to have mothers who also had shorter telomeres – a phenomenon which may due to genetics and family stress.
“These findings underscore the importance of intervening early to address behavior issues in children as well as to treat maternal depression,” the UCSF professor said. “While long-term studies are needed, our results suggest that maternal mental health issues and child behavioral problems can impact children at the cellular level.”
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