ReviewBiology letters2015
Telomere dynamics may link stress exposure and ageing across generations.
Review in Biology letters, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
49 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 109 citations in OpenAlex.
- Perceived stress and telomere length: A systematic review, meta-analysis, and methodologic considerations for advancing the field.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2016Pooled it
- Repeated experimental challenges do not shorten adult telomeres in a songbird.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Maternal childhood adversity accelerates epigenetic aging of children.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2025Article
- Article
- Reproductive aging weakens offspring survival and constrains the telomerase response to herpesvirus in Pacific oysters.Science advances · 2024Article
- Parental Preconception Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Maternal Prenatal Inflammation Prospectively Predict Shorter Telomere Length in Children.Psychosomatic medicine · 2024Article
- Intergenerational effects of maternal lifetime stressor exposure on offspring telomere length in Black and White women.Psychological medicine · 2023Article
- Comparison of Telomere Length in Age-Matched Primiparous and Multiparous Brahman Cows.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Evaluation of physiological stress in free-ranging bears: current knowledge and future directions.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2023Review
- Habitat restoration weakens negative environmental effects on telomere dynamics.Molecular ecology · 2022Article
- Transmissible cancer and longitudinal telomere dynamics in Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii).Molecular ecology · 2022Article
- Stressors interact across generations to influence offspring telomeres and survival.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Lizards from warm and declining populations are born with extremely short telomeres.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Telomere length declines with age, but relates to immune function independent of age in a wild passerine.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Telomere shortening is associated with corticosterone stress response in adult barn swallows.Current zoology · 2022Article
- Integrative Studies of the Effects of Mothers on Offspring: An Example from Wild North American Red Squirrels.Advances in neurobiology · 2022Article
- Article
- Article
- Telomere lengths correlate with fitness but assortative mating by telomeres confers no benefit to fledgling recruitment.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Influence of Maternal Infection and Pregnancy Complications on Cord Blood Telomere Length.Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Although exposure to stressors is known to increase disease susceptibility and accelerate ageing, evidence is accumulating that these effects can span more than one generation. Stressors experienced by parents have been reported to negatively influence the longevity of their offspring and even grand offspring. The mechanisms underlying these long-term, cross-generational effects are still poorly understood, but we argue here that telomere dynamics are likely to play an important role. In this review, we begin by surveying the current connections between stress and telomere dynamics. We then lay out the evidence that exposure to stressors in the parental generation influences telomere dynamics in offspring and potentially subsequent generations. We focus on evidence in mammalian and avian studies and highlight several promising areas where our understanding is incomplete and future investigations are critically needed. Understanding the mechanisms that link stress exposure across generations requires interdisciplinary studies and is essential to both the biomedical community seeking to understand how early adversity impacts health span and evolutionary ecologists interested in how changing environmental conditions are likely to influence age-structured population dynamics.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.