Adverse Childhood Experiences Found to Accelerate Aging

Individuals exposed to a greater number ofadverse childhood experiences (ACEs) —for example, violence, abuse, and neglect early in life—may age more rapidly than those with fewer of these experiences early in life, suggests areport published Monday inJAMA Network Open.The study, which involved data collected from more than 850 middle-aged adults at two time points, found that participants who reported four or more ACEs were likely to have molecular biomarkers that suggested they were older than their chronological ages.Previous research has suggested that “ACEs may modulate epigenetic pathways associated with biological aging and subsequently health-related outcomes,” wrote Kyeezu Kim, Ph.D., of Northwestern University and colleagues. (Epigenetics is the study of how various factors may cause changes in the way genes are switched on and off without changing the actual DNA sequence.) To investigate the association between ACEs and epigenetic age acceleration over time, the researchers studied data collected as part of theCoronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study.A total of 5,115 male and female participants aged 18 to 30 years who identified as Black or White were enrolled in the CARDIA Study between 1985 and 1986. Over the next 30 years, the participants received eight follow-up visits. At the 15-year follow-up visit, the participants filled out the Childhood Family Environment questionnaire, which asked them to estimate their experiences with ne...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: ACEs Adverse Childhood Experiences aging biological aging epigenetics JAMA Network Open Source Type: research