ArticleDepression and anxiety2019
The relation of telomere length at midlife to subsequent 20-year depression trajectories among women.
Article in Depression and anxiety, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Exploring the association between depression and telomere length: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- Association between leucocyte telomere length and erectile dysfunction in US adults: a secondary study based on 2001-2002 NHANES data.BMJ open · 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
- Trauma, psychological distress and markers of systemic inflammation among US women: A longitudinal study.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- Shift-&-Persist and discrimination predicting depression across the life course: An accelerated longitudinal design using MIDUSI-III.Development and psychopathology · 2022Article
- Brain-based mechanisms of late-life depression: Implications for novel interventions.Seminars in cell & developmental biology · 2021Review
- Testing three hypotheses about effects of sensitive-insensitive parenting on telomeres.Developmental psychology · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundTelomeres cap and protect DNA but shorten with each somatic cell division. Aging and environmental and lifestyle factors contribute to the speed of telomere attrition. Current evidence suggests a link between relative telomere length (RTL) and depression but the directionality of the relationship remains unclear. We prospectively examined associations between RTL and subsequent depressive symptom trajectories.
methodsAmong 8,801 women of the Nurses' Health Study, depressive symptoms were measured every 4 years from 1992 to 2012; group-based trajectories of symptoms were identified using latent class growth-curve analysis. Multinomial logistic models were used to relate midlife RTLs to the probabilities of assignment to subsequent depressive symptom trajectory groups.
resultsWe identified four depressive symptom trajectory groups: minimal depressive symptoms (62%), worsening depressive symptoms (14%), improving depressive symptoms (19%), and persistent-severe depressive symptoms (5%). Longer midlife RTLs were related to significantly lower odds of being in the worsening symptoms trajectory versus minimal trajectory but not to other trajectories. In comparison with being in the minimal symptoms group, the multivariable-adjusted odds ratio of being in the worsening depressive symptoms group was 0.78 (95% confidence interval, 0.62-0.97; p = 0.02), for every standard deviation increase in baseline RTL.
conclusionsIn this large prospective study of generally healthy women, longer telomeres at midlife were associated with significantly lower risk of a subsequent trajectory of worsening mood symptoms over 20 years. The results raise the possibility of telomere shortening as a novel contributing factor to late-life depression.
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