ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Stress and telomere shortening among central Indian conservation refugees.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Telomere length analysis from minimally-invasively collected samples: Methods development and meta-analysis of the validity of different sampling techniques: American Journal of Human Biology.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2021Pooled it
- Basal cortisol, cortisol reactivity, and telomere length: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2019Pooled it
- A Randomized Controlled Trial to Increase Navy Bean or Rice Bran Consumption in Colorectal Cancer Survivors.Nutrition and cancerTrial
- Health Implications of Colorism: A Narrative Review of the Literature.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Review
- Telomeric RNA (TERRA) increases in response to spaceflight and high-altitude climbing.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Epigenetic aging differences between Wichí and Criollos from Argentina: Insights from genomic history and ecology.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Article
- Using Three Delay Model to Understand the Social Factors Responsible for Neonatal Deaths Among Displaced Tribal Communities in India.Journal of immigrant and minority health · 2021Article
- Income and Self-Rated Mental Health: Diminished Returns for High Income Black Americans.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2018Article
- Posttraumatic stress disorder and accelerated aging: PTSD and leukocyte telomere length in a sample of civilian women.Depression and anxiety · 2017Article
- Promising Links between Meditation and Reduced (Brain) Aging: An Attempt to Bridge Some Gaps between the Alleged Fountain of Youth and the Youth of the Field.Frontiers in psychology · 2017Review
- Psychological resilience and the gene regulatory impact of posttraumatic stress in Nepali child soldiers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2016Article
- Cumulative stress in research animals: Telomere attrition as a biomarker in a welfare context?BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2016Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Research links psychosocial stress to premature telomere shortening and accelerated human aging; however, this association has only been demonstrated in so-called "WEIRD" societies (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic), where stress is typically lower and life expectancies longer. By contrast, we examine stress and telomere shortening in a non-Western setting among a highly stressed population with overall lower life expectancies: poor indigenous people--the Sahariya--who were displaced (between 1998 and 2002) from their ancestral homes in a central Indian wildlife sanctuary. In this setting, we examined adult populations in two representative villages, one relocated to accommodate the introduction of Asiatic lions into the sanctuary (n = 24 individuals), and the other newly isolated in the sanctuary buffer zone after their previous neighbors were moved (n = 22). Our research strategy combined physical stress measures via the salivary analytes cortisol and α-amylase with self-assessments of psychosomatic stress, ethnographic observations, and telomere length assessment [telomere-fluorescence in situ hybridization (TEL-FISH) coupled with 3D imaging of buccal cell nuclei], providing high-resolution data amenable to multilevel statistical analysis. Consistent with expectations, we found significant associations between each of our stress measures--the two salivary analytes and the psychosomatic symptom survey--and telomere length, after adjusting for relevant behavioral, health, and demographic traits. As the first study (to our knowledge) to link stress to telomere length in a non-WEIRD population, our research strengthens the case for stress-induced telomere shortening as a pancultural biomarker of compromised health and aging.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.