Early Childhood Predicts Telomere Length by Karishma Abhishek on May 25, 2021 at 11:17 PM
Initial setting of Telomere length (TL) during prenatal development and in the first years of life may determine one s TL throughout childhood and potentially even into adulthood or older age. This TL is also found to decrease most rapidly from birth to age 3, followed by a period of maintenance into the pre-puberty period (although sometimes it might lengthen) as per a study at the Columbia Center for Children s Environmental Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology. Telomeres are protective caps on the tip of the genetic material - DNA that tend to shorten as we grow older. The study team followed children from birth to age 9 to evaluate the telomere length.