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 The protective caps known as telomeres shrink with age, and are also
thought to erode with extreme stress.
At age 9, kids who had lost a father had 14 percent shorter
telomeres than children whose dad was still involved in their lives,
researchers report in Pediatrics. Death had the biggest impact, and
the association was stronger for boys than for girls.
"While we know that disparate stressors - smoking, maltreatment,
intense caregiving, etc - are associated with shorter telomeres, the
biological link is not well established and is the subject of
investigation in several labs," said senior study author Dr. Daniel
Notterman, a molecular biology researcher at Princeton University in
New Jersey.
"It is plausible to consider that children who have stress-induced
telomere shortening may be at risk for future health problems, but
many other factors play a role in a person's adult health and
lifespan," Notterman said by email.
The loss of a father is widely known to impair a child's physical
and psychological functioning, and the connection between absent
dads and health problems for kids is well documented, researchers
note. However, less is known about the exact biological causes of
medical issues kids with absent dads can encounter.
Telomeres shorten each time a cell divides. Once telomeres are too
short, cell growth stops, which is why their length is considered a
potential indicator of cellular aging and overall health.
Some previous research has linked shorter telomeres to an increased
risk of a variety of chronic health problems in adults, including
heart disease and cancer.
For the current study, researchers examined data on family structure
and tests of telomere length from saliva samples for 2,420 kids in
20 large American cities.
When a father died, children had 16 percent shorter telomeres than
kids with a dad still in their life, the study found.
Losing a dad to incarceration was associated with 10 percent shorter
telomeres, while a father absent because of separation or divorce
was linked to 6 percent shorter telomeres.
The impact of missing fathers on telomere length didn't appear to
differ by race or ethnicity.
Boys with an absent dad, however, were more vulnerable to shorter
telomeres than girls, particularly if boys lost their father before
age 5, the study also found.
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Researchers also looked at whether certain alleles, or versions of
specific genes, might influence the odds of an absent dad being
associated with shorter telomeres. Differences in gene variants
related to levels of serotonin, a brain chemical responsible for
mood, may partially explain why some kids with absent dads are more
likely than others to have shorter telomeres, the researchers
conclude.
The study wasn't a controlled experiment designed to prove whether
or how absent dads directly contribute to shorter telomeres in kids
or cause any specific health problems, the authors note. It's also
possible that a variety of factors not examined in the study, such
as mothers' parenting quality, might influence whether kids develop
shorter telomeres after the loss of a father.
Even so, since shorter telomeres are a marker of cellular aging, the
study results suggest a biological link between early adversity and
a risk for a range of chronic physical illnesses, said Dr. David
Brent, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of
Pittsburgh Medical Center.
"This is important,” Brent said, because there is evidence that
meditation can help buffer the effects of adversity. “So that for
individuals with exposure to early adversity, such interventions
could in theory actually prevent or attenuate chronic illnesses,"
Brent, who wasn't involved in the study, said by email.
With death in particular, counseling both mothers and children can
help prevent the loss of a father from impacting kids' health, Brent
added. Previous research has shown just a dozen sessions focused on
parenting skills and child coping can encourage better discipline
practices and the open expression of grief.
"There is evidence that strengthening families can buffer against
the effects of the death of a parent," Brent said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2uFNj55 Pediatrics, online July 18, 2017.
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