No Correlation Between Childhood Maltreatment and Telomere Length

Telomeres are lengths of repetitive DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes. They protect the ends of the chromosome and shorten with each cell division. Short leukocyte telomere length has been related to a number of age-related diseases (1). In addition, shorter telomere length has been associated with environmental factors such as smoking and lack of exercise (2,3). In a recent issue of Biological Psychiatry, Tyrka et al. (4) published a report suggesting a link between maltreatment in childhood and telomere shortening in 31 subjects. Individuals who had suffered maltreatment had telomere length .70 ± .24 compared with 1.02 ± .52 in individuals who had not been abused.