Stress and Salivary Telomere Length in the Second Half of Life: A Comparison of Life-course Models

• Published in: Advances in life course research 2019-03, Vol.39, p.34-41
• Main Authors: Willis, Margaret, Staudinger, Ursula M, Factor-Litvak, Pam, Calvo, Esteban
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adverse Childhood Experiences - statistics & numerical data; Aged; Child; Female; Humans; Life Change Events; Male; Risk Factors; Saliva; Stress, Psychological - psychology; Surveys and Questionnaires; Telomere - genetics
• ISSN: 1569-4909; 1879-6974; 1879-6974
• DOI: 10.1016/j.alcr.2019.02.001

Previous research has explored the relationship between childhood and adulthood stressful life events (SLEs) and adult salivary telomere length (TL), but no research to date has tested different life-course models in which stress in adulthood may fully, partly, or not mediate the relationship between childhood stress and adult TL. To fill this gap, we elaborate over previous work by Puterman et al. (2016) and other standard models that do not account for the temporal order of stressors in childhood and adulthood, by using structural equation modeling (SEM) for a sample of 5,754 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) participants to compare the fit of three nested life-course models-social trajectory, early critical period, and cumulative risk. Results indicated that the model, in which the association between childhood SLEs and TL in later adulthood is fully mediated by adulthood SLEs, fit the data better than the (no mediation) and (partial mediation) models. In the model, childhood SLEs are related to TL in later life only through adulthood SLEs. The direct physiological effect of childhood SLEs on TL in later life would be overestimated if adulthood SLEs are overlooked.