Shorter telomere length in people with schizophrenia who live alone?

Human telomeres are repeated DNA-protein sequences (i.e., TTAGGG) that cap the ends of chromosomes and protect against chromosomal instability during cell replication (Blackburn and Epel, 2012). However, as a consequence of cell division, telomeres progressively get shorter with age, and a number of environmental factors, including psychosocial stress, may accelerate this shortening (Lin et al., 2012). Recent studies have found that shorter telomere length may be associated with schizophrenia (Rao et al., 2016), however, the specific contributing factors remain unknown.

Source: Schizophrenia Research - February 27, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Ryan P. Balzan, Varinderpal S. Dhillon, Dennis Liu, Lisa Hahn, Michael F. Fenech, Cherrie Galletly Tags: Letter to the editor Source Type: research