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The Counterintuitive Relationship between Telomerase Activity and Childhood Emotional Abuse: Culture and Complexity

BACKGROUND: A burgeoning literature has found relationships between telomere length, telomerase activity, and human health and longevity. Although some research links a history of childhood adversity with shortened telomere length, our review found no prior research on the relationship between child...

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Autores principales: Emery, Clifton R., Xie, Qian-Wen, Chan, Jessie S. M., Leng, Ling-Li, Chan, Celia H. Y., So, Kwok-Fai, Li, Ang, Po, Kevin K. T., Chouliara, Zoe, Chan, Cecilia Lai Wan, Choi, Anna W. M., Yuen, L. P., Ku, Kam Shing, Kung, Winnie, Ng, Siu-Man
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7914855/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33567728
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041619
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author Emery, Clifton R.
Xie, Qian-Wen
Chan, Jessie S. M.
Leng, Ling-Li
Chan, Celia H. Y.
So, Kwok-Fai
Li, Ang
Po, Kevin K. T.
Chouliara, Zoe
Chan, Cecilia Lai Wan
Choi, Anna W. M.
Yuen, L. P.
Ku, Kam Shing
Kung, Winnie
Ng, Siu-Man
author_facet Emery, Clifton R.
Xie, Qian-Wen
Chan, Jessie S. M.
Leng, Ling-Li
Chan, Celia H. Y.
So, Kwok-Fai
Li, Ang
Po, Kevin K. T.
Chouliara, Zoe
Chan, Cecilia Lai Wan
Choi, Anna W. M.
Yuen, L. P.
Ku, Kam Shing
Kung, Winnie
Ng, Siu-Man
author_sort Emery, Clifton R.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: A burgeoning literature has found relationships between telomere length, telomerase activity, and human health and longevity. Although some research links a history of childhood adversity with shortened telomere length, our review found no prior research on the relationship between child maltreatment history and telomerase activity in adulthood. We hypothesized a negative relationship between child maltreatment and telomerase activity and hypothesized that the association would be moderated by sex. METHODS: These relationships were tested on a sample of 262 Hong Kong Chinese adults (200 females versus 62 males) with mild to moderate depression. RESULTS: Counterintuitively, emotional abuse was positively associated with telomerase activity, while other maltreatment types were non-significant. The positive relationship between emotional abuse and telomerase activity was significantly moderated by the sex of the participant. CONCLUSIONS: We advance two possible explanations for this finding (1) a culturally informed resilience explanation and (2) a homeostatic complexity explanation. The two explanations are not mutually exclusive. This trial is registered under Hong Kong Clinical Trial Register number HKCTR-1929. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Emotional abuse was significantly positively associated with telomerase activity. There are at least two non-mutually exclusive explanations for the findings. Simply put, either (1) in the cultural context of Hong Kong emotional abuse was not a risk factor, and/or (2) the conceptualization of telomerase activity as a straightforward indicator of longevity is overly simplistic. The first story we might term a “resilience explanation” while the second we might call a “homeostatic complexity” story.
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spelling pubmed-79148552021-03-01 The Counterintuitive Relationship between Telomerase Activity and Childhood Emotional Abuse: Culture and Complexity Emery, Clifton R. Xie, Qian-Wen Chan, Jessie S. M. Leng, Ling-Li Chan, Celia H. Y. So, Kwok-Fai Li, Ang Po, Kevin K. T. Chouliara, Zoe Chan, Cecilia Lai Wan Choi, Anna W. M. Yuen, L. P. Ku, Kam Shing Kung, Winnie Ng, Siu-Man Int J Environ Res Public Health Article BACKGROUND: A burgeoning literature has found relationships between telomere length, telomerase activity, and human health and longevity. Although some research links a history of childhood adversity with shortened telomere length, our review found no prior research on the relationship between child maltreatment history and telomerase activity in adulthood. We hypothesized a negative relationship between child maltreatment and telomerase activity and hypothesized that the association would be moderated by sex. METHODS: These relationships were tested on a sample of 262 Hong Kong Chinese adults (200 females versus 62 males) with mild to moderate depression. RESULTS: Counterintuitively, emotional abuse was positively associated with telomerase activity, while other maltreatment types were non-significant. The positive relationship between emotional abuse and telomerase activity was significantly moderated by the sex of the participant. CONCLUSIONS: We advance two possible explanations for this finding (1) a culturally informed resilience explanation and (2) a homeostatic complexity explanation. The two explanations are not mutually exclusive. This trial is registered under Hong Kong Clinical Trial Register number HKCTR-1929. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Emotional abuse was significantly positively associated with telomerase activity. There are at least two non-mutually exclusive explanations for the findings. Simply put, either (1) in the cultural context of Hong Kong emotional abuse was not a risk factor, and/or (2) the conceptualization of telomerase activity as a straightforward indicator of longevity is overly simplistic. The first story we might term a “resilience explanation” while the second we might call a “homeostatic complexity” story. MDPI 2021-02-08 2021-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7914855/ /pubmed/33567728 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041619 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Emery, Clifton R.
Xie, Qian-Wen
Chan, Jessie S. M.
Leng, Ling-Li
Chan, Celia H. Y.
So, Kwok-Fai
Li, Ang
Po, Kevin K. T.
Chouliara, Zoe
Chan, Cecilia Lai Wan
Choi, Anna W. M.
Yuen, L. P.
Ku, Kam Shing
Kung, Winnie
Ng, Siu-Man
The Counterintuitive Relationship between Telomerase Activity and Childhood Emotional Abuse: Culture and Complexity
title The Counterintuitive Relationship between Telomerase Activity and Childhood Emotional Abuse: Culture and Complexity
title_full The Counterintuitive Relationship between Telomerase Activity and Childhood Emotional Abuse: Culture and Complexity
title_fullStr The Counterintuitive Relationship between Telomerase Activity and Childhood Emotional Abuse: Culture and Complexity
title_full_unstemmed The Counterintuitive Relationship between Telomerase Activity and Childhood Emotional Abuse: Culture and Complexity
title_short The Counterintuitive Relationship between Telomerase Activity and Childhood Emotional Abuse: Culture and Complexity
title_sort counterintuitive relationship between telomerase activity and childhood emotional abuse: culture and complexity
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7914855/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33567728
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041619
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