ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences2021
Are Biological Consequences of Childhood Exposures Detectable in Telomere Length Decades Later?
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Early life adversity, educational attainment, and cardiometabolic risk among middle-aged and older adults in the United States.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2026Article
- Molecular markers, mechanisms and metrics of biological aging: a scoping review.Frontiers in aging · 2026Review
- The Many Faces of Child Abuse: How Clinical, Genetic and Epigenetic Correlates Help Us See the Full Picture.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Geroscience and pathology: a new frontier in understanding age-related diseases.Pathology oncology research : POR · 2024Review
- The Long Shadow: Early-Life Adversity and Later-Life Loneliness in the United States.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2023Article
- Deaths, Disparities, and Cumulative (Dis)Advantage: How Social Inequities Produce an Impairment Paradox in Later Life.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2022Article
- Genetic, Environmental and Lifestyle Determinants of Accelerated Telomere Attrition as Contributors to Risk and Severity of Multiple Sclerosis.Biomolecules · 2021Review
- Coming up short: Comparing venous blood, dried blood spots & saliva samples for measuring telomere length in health equity research.PloS one · 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
Abstract
Negative early-life exposures have been linked to a host of poor adult health outcomes, but are such early exposures associated with cellular senescence decades later? This study uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine the association between six childhood exposure domains (eg, socioeconomic disadvantage, risky parental behavior) and a biomarker of aging, telomere length, among 4,935 respondents. Telomere length is obtained from DNA of cells found in saliva and is measured as the telomere repeat copy number to single gene copy number ratio (T/S). Men who as children were exposed to risky parental behaviors or who reported risky adolescent behaviors have shorter telomeres (b = -0.031, p = .052; b = -0.041, p = .045, respectively); however, these relationships are attenuated after adjusting for adult risks and resources. Among women, parental substance abuse is associated with shorter telomeres even after adjusting for adult risks and resources (b = -0.041, p = .005). In addition, men and women whose mother lived at least until the age of 85 have longer telomeres than those without a long-lived mother (b = 0.021, p = .045; b = 0.032, p = .005, respectively). Taken together, the ways in which early-life exposures are associated with adult telomeres vary for men and women.
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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.