ArticleMolecular psychiatry2018
Depression, telomeres and mitochondrial DNA: between- and within-person associations from a 10-year longitudinal study.
Article in Molecular psychiatry, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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
48 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 86 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mitochondrial-inflammation crosstalk in major depressive disorder: molecular mechanisms and therapeutic implications.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Role of telomere length and telomerase activity in accelerated cellular aging and major depressive disorder: a systematic review.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Exploring the association between depression and telomere length: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- Whole blood mitochondrial copy number in clinical populations with mood disorders: A meta-analysis: Blood mitochondrial copy number and mood disorders.Psychiatry research · 2024Pooled it
- Association between mitochondrial DNA levels and depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA, but not leukocyte mitochondrial DNA copy number, is elevated in major depressive disorder.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2018Trial
- Internet Gaming Addiction in Male Adolescents: Mitochondrial DNA Variations and Leukocyte Telomere Length.Genes · 2026Article
- Prenatal tobacco exposure and adult offspring brain health: the mediating role of leukocyte telomere length in a large population-based cohort.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- The effect of the integrated stress response reduction intervention on cellular aging in middle-aged nurses: a pilot study.BMC nursing · 2026Article
- Premature aging in serious mental illness.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Decreased Mitochondrial DNA Integrity and Elevated Inflammatory Markers in Late-Life Depression: A Longitudinal Study.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2025Article
- Epigenetic Clocks Identify Harmful Epigenetic Aging Linked to Depression Severity and Cognitive Deficits in Major Depressive Disorder.Aging and disease · 2025Article
- The duration of lithium use and biological ageing: telomere length, frailty, metabolomic age and all-cause mortality.GeroScience · 2024Observational
- Associations between sarcopenia and depression in middle-aged and older adults: the moderating effect of smoking.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Geroscience-Centric Perspective for Geriatric Psychiatry: Integrating Aging Biology With Geriatric Mental Health Research.The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry · 2024Review
- The Social Environment Matters for Telomere Length and Internalizing Problems During Adolescence.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2024Article
- Decoding emotional resilience in aging: unveiling the interplay between daily functioning and emotional health.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Genes associated with cellular senescence as diagnostic markers of major depressive disorder and their correlations with immune infiltration.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Associations of depression and anxiety and adolescent telomere length.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Alterations in cellular aging, indexed by leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn), might partly account for the increased health risks in persons with depression. Although some studies indeed found cross-sectional associations of depression with LTL and mtDNAcn, the longitudinal associations remain unclear. This 10-year longitudinal study examined between- and within-person associations of depressive symptoms with LTL and mtDNAcn in a large community sample. Data are from years 15, 20 and 25 follow-up evaluations in 977 subjects from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study. Depressive symptoms (years 15, 20, 25) were assessed with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale; LTL (years 15, 20, 25) and mtDNAcn (years 15, 25) were measured in whole blood by quantitative PCR. With mixed-model analyses, we explored between- and within-person associations between CES-D scores and cellular aging markers. Results showed that high levels of depressive symptomatology throughout the 10-year time span was associated with shorter average LTL over 10 years (B=-4.2; P=0.014) after covarying for age, sex, race and education. However, no within-person association was found between depressive symptoms and LTL at each year (B=-0.8; P=0.548). Further, we found no between-person (B=-0.2; P=0.744) or within-person (B=0.4; P=0.497) associations between depressive symptomatology and mtDNAcn. Our results provide evidence for a long-term, between-person relationship of depressive symptoms with LTL, rather than a dynamic and direct within-person relationship. In this study, we found no evidence for an association between depressive symptoms and mtDNAcn.
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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.