Children in troubled families experience changes in their genetic material, a new research by Tulane University reveals.
According to the researchers, children who witness domestic violence, suicide or incarceration of a family member have significantly shorter telomeres, a cellular marker of aging. Telomeres are the caps on chromosomes that keep them from shrinking when cells replicate. Shorter telomeres increase the risk of heart disease, obesity, cognitive decline, diabetes, mental illness and poor health outcomes in adulthood.
For the study, researchers examined the genetic samples of 80 New Orleans children aged 5-15 years. The team also interviewed parents about their home environments and exposures to adverse life events.
"Family-level stressors, such as witnessing a family member get hurt, created an environment that affected the DNA within the cells of the children," said lead author Dr. Stacy Drury, director of the Behavioral and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Laboratory at Tulane.
"The greater the number of exposures these kids had in life, the shorter their telomeres were - and this was after controlling for many other factors, including socioeconomic status, maternal education, parental age and the child's age," she said in a press release
The findings also showed that gender moderated the impact of family instability. Traumatic family events had greater negative effects on young girls than boys. The team also found that mothers with higher education levels had a positive correlation with telomere length, but only in boys less than 10 years old.
Researchers noted the findings suggest that the atmosphere at home is an important intervention target to reduce the biological impacts of adversity in the lives of young children, Drury said.
The findings are published online in the latest issue of the journal 'Pediatrics'.
