Children living traumatic experiences age before

After intense or chronic stress, it is said that gray hair can appear and wrinkles are accentuated in the face of people who suffer from it, it seems that they age at a faster rate than usual. As well also children are affected by traumatic experiences so that, even if they do not look older at the moment, their bodies undergo changes that will make them age before.

A recent study suggests a lasting biological impact of traumatic experiences during the first years of life: family difficulties and stress experienced in childhood could accelerate aging in adulthood. One more reason to protect them from traumas (true traumas).

For this study, published in the "Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences" (PNAS), researchers compared the length of salivary gland telomets of 4,598 men and women over 50 in the United States. These chromosome protective DNA structures narrow as they age due to cell maturity and disease.

Participants answered questions about the traumatizing experiences lived throughout his life, especially those before the age of 18: financial difficulties in the home, evictions, that the father lost his job or that one of the parents was an alcoholic or drug addict, physical and sexual abuse, altered with the police ...

The research team, from the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver (Canada), found that the reduction of telomeres after age 50 increased by 11% for each traumatic experience lived in childhood.

There were already previous research that suggested that a difficult childhood could have an impact on cell aging in adulthood, which would be confirmed by this new study. In addition, stressful situations in childhood have more negative effects on health by becoming older than the stressors experienced later, in adulthood.

Given that more than three quarters of the participants in the study realized at least one traumatic experience in their lives, and more than half of them, two or more, we realize how frequent these facts are. Eviction, unemployment, crisis ... are situations too common these days in our environment, unfortunately. And many times the little ones are in the middle. And children are the ones who suffer the most. Now and in the future.

Video: Depression and Childhood Trauma: Leah's Story (March 2024).