Analysis of Childhood Trauma and Epigenetic Age Acceleration Showed No Apparent Link or Sex Specific Effects in Adolescents

Abstract

Research indicates that adverse childhood events are associated with accelerated biological aging, which is linked to negative effects on mortality and an increased susceptibility to psychiatric diseases. Additionally, differences in pace of biological aging between men and women have been reported. A widely used measure for biological age is epigenetic age, for which so-called epigenetic clocks are developed. We analyzed a dataset of 500 young participants and assessed childhood trauma using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Epigenetic age acceleration was calculated using five different commonly used epigenetic clocks. Our results revealed no significant associations between childhood trauma and epigenetic age acceleration, and no sex specific effect. Moreover, we examined the role of genetic risk for childhood trauma on epigenetic age acceleration. Similarly, this analysis yielded no significant results or detect any notable sex specific effects. These findings suggest that there may not be a significant correlation between childhood trauma and epigenetic age acceleration in adolescents that experienced moderate childhood trauma exposure. This paper also highlights the need to incorporate larger sample sizes and consider potential sex-specific effects to comprehend these interactions and their implications for overall health and mortality.