Abstract
Exposure to psychological stress and depression are associated with shorter white blood cell telomere length (TL) in adults, possibly via associated lifelong oxidative stressors. Exposure to maternal depression increases risk for future depression and behavior problems in children, and Latino youth are at high risk. Few studies have evaluated the role of exposure to maternal depression or child behavior in relation to TL in children. We assessed early-childhood exposures to maternal depression from birth to the age of 5 years and child behavior from ages 3–5 years in a cohort of Latino children in relation to child leukocyte TL at ages 4 and 5 years. Children who had oppositional defiant behavior at 3, 4 or 5 years had shorter TL than those without by ~450 base pairs (P<0.01). In multivariate analyses, independent predictors for shorter TL at 4 and 5 years of age included oppositional defiant disorder at 3, 4 or 5 years (β=−359.25, 95% CI −633.84 to 84.66; P=0.01), exposure to maternal clinical depression at 3 years of age (β=−363.99, 95% CI −651.24 to 764.74; P=0.01), shorter maternal TL (β=502.92, 95% CI 189.21–816.63) and younger paternal age at the child's birth (β=24.63, 95% CI 1.14–48.12). Thus, exposure to maternal clinical depression (versus depressive symptoms) in early childhood was associated with deleterious consequences on child cellular health as indicated by shorter TL at 4 and 5 years of age. Similarly, children with oppositional defiant behavior also had shorter TL, possibly related to early exposures to maternal clinical depression. Our study is the first to link maternal clinical depression and oppositional defiant behavior with shorter TL in the preschool years in a relatively homogenous population of low-income Latino children.
Highlights
Telomeres are the protective DNA and protein complexes at the end of chromosomes and ensure chromosomal stability
Chronic stress could lead to a greater expression of latent viruses such as Epstein–Barr virus[10] or cytomegalovirus, which have been implicated in telomere shortening.[11]
We evaluated the effect of exposure to maternal depression and child behavior problems on telomere length (TL) in early childhood in a group of high-risk, low-income Latino
Summary
Telomeres are the protective DNA and protein complexes at the end of chromosomes and ensure chromosomal stability. Maternal depressive symptoms were assessed prenatally, at 4–6 weeks postpartum and annually throughout the follow-up period until age 5 years using the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale[37] and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale[38] to assess for depressive symptoms, and the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI, version 5.0)[39] was used to evaluate for current major depressive models that assessed the associations for oppositional defiant behavior and child anxiety separately, adjusting for child’s age at collection of telomeres, maternal TL and paternal age at birth. We assessed the associations between clinical depression at 3 years of age and child anxiety and oppositional defiant behavior using logistic regression models to better understand possible relationships between maternal and child mental health in relation to child telomere outcomes at ages 4 and 5 years. All interviews were conducted either in either English or Spanish and all measures to assess mental health used had previously been validated in Spanish speaking populations as previously described.[34,35,36] The study was
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