ArticlePloS one2015
Childhood Physical and Sexual Abuse History and Leukocyte Telomere Length among Women in Middle Adulthood.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association between Childhood Exposure to Family Violence and Telomere Length: A Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Adverse childhood experiences, epigenetics and telomere length variation in childhood and beyond: a systematic review of the literature.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2020Pooled it
- Adverse Childhood Experiences and Telomere Length a Look Into the Heterogeneity of Findings-A Narrative Review.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2019Pooled it
- Early life adversity and telomere length: a meta-analysis.Molecular psychiatry · 2018Pooled it
- Molecular markers, mechanisms and metrics of biological aging: a scoping review.Frontiers in aging · 2026Review
- The role of optimism, connectedness, and neighborhood collective efficacy as moderators of harsh parenting on telomere length.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, and Accelerated Aging: Leukocyte Telomere Length in the Nurses' Health Study II.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2023Article
- Mechanisms by which adverse childhood experiences, other traumas and PTSD influence the health and well-being of individuals with eating disorders throughout the life span.Journal of eating disorders · 2022Review
- Early life trauma and adult leucocyte telomere length.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- The Counterintuitive Relationship between Telomerase Activity and Childhood Emotional Abuse: Culture and Complexity.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Psychobiological Consequences of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Current Knowledge and Clinical Implications.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Review
- Intergenerational transmission of childhood trauma? Testing cellular aging in mothers exposed to sexual abuse and their children.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2020Article
- Article
- Familial support following childhood sexual abuse is associated with longer telomere length in adult females.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2019Article
- Childhood maltreatment, behavioral adjustment, and molecular markers of cellular aging in preschool-aged children: A cohort study.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2019Article
- Translating basic research knowledge on the biological embedding of early-life stress into novel approaches for the developmental programming of lifelong health.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2019Review
- Article
- A scoping systematic review of social stressors and various measures of telomere length across the life course.Ageing research reviews · 2018Article
- The fetal programming of telomere biology hypothesis: an update.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2018Review
- Prospective associations of psychosocial adversity in childhood with risk factors for cardiovascular disease in adulthood: the MRC National Survey of Health and Development.International journal for equity in health · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveAbuse victimization in childhood is associated with a variety of age-related cardiometabolic diseases, but the mechanisms remain unknown. Telomeres, which form the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes, have been proposed as measures of biological age, and a growing body of research suggests that telomere attrition may help to explain relationships between stress and cardiometabolic degradation. We examined the association between childhood abuse victimization and leukocyte telomere length among 1,135 participants in the Nurses' Health Study II (NHSII).
methodsThe NHSII ascertained physical and sexual child abuse histories in 2001. Telomere length was measured in genomic DNA extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes collected between 1996 and 1999. The ratio of telomere repeat copy number to a single gene copy number (T/S) was determined by a modified version of the quantitative real-time PCR telomere assay. Telomere length was log-transformed and corrected for assay variation across batch. We regressed telomere length on childhood abuse exposure variables and covariates using linear regression.
resultsWe observed a reduction in telomere length associated with moderate physical abuse versus no physical abuse, but there was no evidence of a dose-response relationship for increased severity of physical abuse. No associations were noted for sexual abuse.
conclusionsWe found no evidence of an association between severity of childhood physical or sexual abuse and leukocyte telomere length in the NHSII.
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