The relationship between childhood psychosocial stressor level and telomere length: a meta-analysis

Title
The relationship between childhood psychosocial stressor level and telomere length: a meta-analysis
Publication Date
2017
Author(s)
Hanssen, Louise
Schutte, Nicola
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3294-7659
Email: nschutte@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:nschutte
Malouff, John M
Epel, Elissa S
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Pagepress
Place of publication
Italy
DOI
10.4081/hpr.2017.6378
UNE publication id
une:21227
Abstract
This meta-analysis examined the association between the level of childhood psychosocial stressors and telomere length, an important health biomarker. The meta-analysis, including 27 samples and 16,238 participants, found a significant association of -0.08 between a higher level of childhood stressors and shorter telomere length at a mean age of 42 across studies. Moderator analyses showed a trend in the direction of effect sizes being significantly larger with shorter times between the stressors and telomere measurement. Moderator analyses showed significantly higher effect sizes for studies that used a categorical method for assessing child stressor level and for assays completed with qPCR rather than with the Southern blot method. There was no significant moderation of effect size by whether study assayed leukocytes or buccal cells, whether the study assessed child stressor level by memory-based recall versus archival records, and whether the study controlled for age, sex, or additional variables. The results, focused on childhood events, add to prior findings that perceived stress and negative emotions are associated with telomere length.
Link
Citation
Health Psychology Research, 5(1), p. 14-22
ISSN
2420-8124
Pubmed ID
28603779
Start page
14
End page
22

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