August 28, 2024
Why child maltreatment could cause lasting epigenetic changes
Contact: Jon Meerdink ([email protected])
ANN ARBOR — Childhood abuse is well understood to cause significant emotional damage, but new research reveals it can also leave lasting biological damage.
“Childhood Maltreatment and Longitudinal Epigenetic Aging,” published via the JAMA Network in July, argues that mistreatment of children can cause damage that leaves lasting biological traces that may contribute to long-term physical health risks.
Olivia Chang, a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, was the paper’s lead author. She and her co-authors utilized data collected from approximately 2,000 children who participated in the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, finding evidence that maltreatment contributed to alterations in epigenetic age.
“Notably, we found that physical and emotional abuse were linked to alterations in epigenetic age, often whether it was experienced at age three, five, or accumulated at both ages,” said Chang. “Other types of maltreatment, such as types of neglect, appear to be more developmentally sensitive in terms of its linkage to epigenetic changes.”
A person’s epigenetic age is closely linked to chronological age, but reflects the age researchers would estimate a person to be based on markers from biological testing, specifically DNA methylation. This study showed that children who suffer from maltreatment can have an increased epigenetic age, which can create lasting health issues.
“These early experiences of trauma seem to trigger biological changes, such as alterations in DNA methylation that ‘embed’ the stress of maltreatment into a child’s biology. This process can disrupt normal development and contribute to accelerated epigenetic aging and a heightened risk of chronic disease or health conditions later in adulthood.”
Those conditions could include cognitive decline, cardiovascular disease, and other age-related illnesses. It’s possible that these changes could be mitigated over time, but the conclusion reinforces the importance of early intervention in the face of abuse as well as prevention strategies, both to stop immediate harm and to prevent long-term damage.
According to Chang, this is one of the few studies exploring how the impact of early childhood adversities may be detected in alterations to epigenetic age within even late childhood and adolescence — more work is needed on this topic, including on those children whose epigenetic aging slows down.
“We saw in our findings some children exhibited decelerations in epigenetic aging. What that means for long-term health, we don’t know yet.”
“Childhood Maltreatment and Longitudinal Epigenetic Aging” utilized data supported by the National Institutes of Health. The full paper is available via JAMA Link and was developed with support from Helen Meier, Colter Mitchell, and Pamela Davis-Kean of the Institute for Social Research and Kathryn Maguire-Jack of the University of Michigan School of Social Work.