The Association of Individual Changes in Stressful Life Events and Telomere Length Over Time in Twins 50 Years and Older

Bibliographic Data

ID19309019
AuthorsLotte Gerritsen (0000-0002-8990-5396, University of California, Riverside, corresponding author), Sara Hägg (0000-0002-2452-1500, University of California, Riverside), Chandra A Reynolds (0000-0003-3915-3963, University of California, Riverside), Nancy L Pedersen (0000-0001-8057-3543, University of California, Riverside)
Year2020
Volume82
Issue6
Pages614-622
Publication date2020-07-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePsychosomatic Medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0033-3174 • E-ISSN: 1534-7796
PublisherOvid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1097/psy.0000000000000826
PMID32427758
OpenAlexW3024599613
LanguageEN
References cited43

OBJECTIVE: Exposure to adverse stressors has been associated with shortening of leukocyte telomere length (LTL). The present longitudinal study investigates the time course of exposure to life events and LTL to determine whether increases in exposure to life events are related to subsequent accelerated LTL shortening. METHODS: In the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging, we assessed late-life stressful events and LTL in 543 individual participants (mean age = 68.4 years, 40% men, including 48 complete monozygotic twin pairs and 167 complete dizygotic twin pairs) in up to five separate measurements over a period of 25 years. LTL was measured using quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Longitudinal analyses were conducted using time-varying mixed modeling, corrected for life-style factors and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: When adjusting for differences in genetic makeup by looking only in monozygotic twins, we found that an increase in life stressors within an individual was related to decreased LTL over time (B = -0.02; 95% confidence interval = -0.04 to 0.01; p = .002). None of the findings were significant when only looking at dizygotic twins (all, p > .05). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings in an older population show a causal relation between increase in life stress and accelerated LTL shortening by using intraindividual time-varying analysis

Biology · Confidence interval · Dizygotic twin · Dizygotic twins · Heritability · Longitudinal study · Monozygotic twin · Pathology · Population · Stressor · Telomere · Twin study · Birth, Development, and Health · Clinical Psychology · Demography · Epigenetics and DNA Methylation · Genetics · Internal Medicine · Medicine · Psychology · Telomeres, Telomerase, and Senescence

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