ArticlePsychoneuroendocrinology2021
Telomere dynamics across the early life course: Findings from a longitudinal study in children.
Article in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
17 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Are pregnancy and parity associated with telomere length? A systematic review.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2023Pooled it
- Telomere length and chronological age across the human lifespan: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 414 study samples including 743,019 individuals.Ageing research reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Physiological Age and Homeostatic Dysregulation Following Child Maltreatment in Youth.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Maternal and early-life arsenic exposure and relative telomere length in children: Findings from the BiRCH cohort.Environmental research · 2026Article
- The aging paradox of Cushing's syndrome: Stress without clear senescence?Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2026Review
- Relationship between genetically determined telomere length and childhood glioma risk.Acta neuropathologica communications · 2026Article
- Telomere length in youth with type 1 diabetes and the role of physical fitness.Pediatric research · 2025Article
- Gestational phthalate levels and biomarkers of aging in infants and children from New York City.Environmental research · 2025Article
- Dynamic Telomere Length Response to Neurodevelopmental Arsenic Exposure: Insights into Transcriptional Regulation and Neuronal Morphogenesis.Environment & health (Washington, D.C.) · 2025Article
- Telomere length in offspring is determined by mitochondrial-nuclear communication at fertilization.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Maternal experience of intimate partner violence, maternal depression, and parental stress are not associated with child telomere length in Bangladesh.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Early-life exposure to secondhand smoke and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: associations with epigenetic aging among children.Environmental epigenetics · 2025Article
- Parental Preconception Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Maternal Prenatal Inflammation Prospectively Predict Shorter Telomere Length in Children.Psychosomatic medicine · 2024Article
- Sex and early-life conditions shape telomere dynamics in an ectotherm.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Early origins of health and disease risk: The case for investigating adverse exposures and biological aging in utero, across childhood, and into adolescence.Child development perspectives · 2023Article
- Association of early and current life factors with telomere length in preterm-born children.PloS one · 2023Article
- Prenatal PMToxics · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Telomeres are protective caps on chromosome ends that shorten with each cell division. Telomere length (TL) predicts the onset of cellular senescence and correlates with longevity and age-related disease risk. Previous research suggests that adults display fixed ranking and tracking of TL by age 20 years, supporting the importance of TL at birth and attrition during childhood. However, longitudinal research examining telomere dynamics during early life is sparse. Here, we used monochrome multiplex quantitative polymerase chain reaction to measure relative TL in leukocytes isolated from cord blood and child blood collected at ages 3, 5, 7, and 9 years among 224 minority children enrolled in a New York City-based birth cohort. We also measured maternal TL at delivery in a subset of 197 participants with a biobanked blood sample. TL decreased most rapidly in the first years of life (birth to 3 years), followed by a period of maintenance into the pre-puberty period. Mothers with longer telomeres gave birth to newborns with longer telomeres that remained longer across childhood, suggesting that the fixed ranking and tracking of TL observed among adults may extend to early childhood or even the prenatal period with a potential transgenerational basis. We did not find significant sex differences in the pattern of child TL change across development. These findings emphasize the need to understand factors and mechanisms that determine TL during early childhood.
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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.