Abandoned Children’s DNA Damaged

U.S. scientists have conducted a study in Romanian orphanages and found a striking fact: the adverse environment and unhappy childhood shorten telomeres. Telomeres are terminal parts of chromosomes that regulate cell aging. That is, abandoned children will get older faster and will live less…

The researchers compared two groups of children: those who had stayed in the orphanage, and those who had been adopted. The total number was more than a hundred people. The result clearly showed the tendency: the more time the children had spent at the orphanage by the age of 5 years, the shorter their telomeres became at the age of 6-10 years. Thus, we can assume that the “irrelevance” of these children is literally written in DNA and shortens life on the subtlest of all levels.

The researchers continue to work and expect to determine whether telomeres are restored after the successful adoption of children or this damage is irreversible.

Source of the image: Photl.