ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2021
The Counterintuitive Relationship between Telomerase Activity and Childhood Emotional Abuse: Culture and Complexity.
Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- Telomere Dynamics in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Critical Synthesis.Biomedicines · 2025Review
- No Mediation Effect of Telomere Length or Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number on the Association Between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Central Arterial Stiffness.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundA burgeoning literature has found relationships between telomere length, telomerase activity, and human health and longevity. Although some research links a history of childhood adversity with shortened telomere length, our review found no prior research on the relationship between child maltreatment history and telomerase activity in adulthood. We hypothesized a negative relationship between child maltreatment and telomerase activity and hypothesized that the association would be moderated by sex.
methodsThese relationships were tested on a sample of 262 Hong Kong Chinese adults (200 females versus 62 males) with mild to moderate depression.
resultsCounterintuitively, emotional abuse was positively associated with telomerase activity, while other maltreatment types were non-significant. The positive relationship between emotional abuse and telomerase activity was significantly moderated by the sex of the participant.
conclusionsWe advance two possible explanations for this finding (1) a culturally informed resilience explanation and (2) a homeostatic complexity explanation. The two explanations are not mutually exclusive. This trial is registered under Hong Kong Clinical Trial Register number HKCTR-1929. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Emotional abuse was significantly positively associated with telomerase activity. There are at least two non-mutually exclusive explanations for the findings. Simply put, either (1) in the cultural context of Hong Kong emotional abuse was not a risk factor, and/or (2) the conceptualization of telomerase activity as a straightforward indicator of longevity is overly simplistic. The first story we might term a "resilience explanation" while the second we might call a "homeostatic complexity" story.
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Registered trials
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