A team of scientists from the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research has carried out a study that concludes that children who grow up with emotional distress and therefore have a complicated childhood, suffer premature aging of their chromosomes .
The study was carried out with 40 9-year-old children , chosen according to their family environment, trying to choose them from very different environments. After examining the economic conditions of the family, the emotional and sentimental stability of the parents, the education, as well as the real biological age of the children (measuring the length of the telomeres, the ends of the chromosomes of the cells), the researchers found that children who had grown up in unfavorable environments had telomeres similar in length to those of a middle-aged person .
Specifically, the results of the study revealed that the children of mothers who had gone through several relationships, had 40% shorter telomeres than those who had the same family structure from birth.
This research shows that the length of telomeres indicates our longevity, becoming an irrefutable proof of our state of health , so that lack of attention or family instability in childhood become clear risk factors for our body. The conclusions of the work have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
