Chauhan V S, Sibin M K, Yadav Prateek, Sharma Markanday
Professor & Head, Department of Psychiatry, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, India.
Scientist 'C' & Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, India.
Med J Armed Forces India. 2024 Mar-Apr;80(2):184-191. doi: 10.1016/j.mjafi.2023.12.008. Epub 2024 Feb 7.
Childhood traumatic (CT) events are more frequent in Bipolar Affective Disorder (BD) than in healthy individuals. As per existing studies, telomere shortening might be associated with psychiatric illnesses and aging-related disorders. One basis could be CT in BD aiding in telomere shortening.
100 BD patients and 100 healthy controls (HC) were matched for age and sex. All the participants were administered Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). Subsequently, Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (q-PCR) was performed in order to verify leukocyte telomere length (LTL) for both cases and controls.
Presence of subtypes of moderate to severe CT among cases revealed emotional abuse in 35%, physical abuse in 16%, and sexual abuse in 15%. BD patients had significantly shorter telomeres in comparison to HC. BD patients with CT had significantly shorter LTL as compared to healthy controls with CT. The association between CT and LTL was not statistically significant in cases as well as in controls.
Our study revealed presence of CT (moderate to severe) in 46% of BD patients and 12% in age and sex-matched healthy controls. All CT subtypes except sexual abuse were significantly higher among cases than in healthy controls. Mean score of LTL among cases including that with CT was significantly lower than the healthy controls.
童年创伤性（CT）事件在双相情感障碍（BD）患者中比在健康个体中更常见。根据现有研究，端粒缩短可能与精神疾病和衰老相关疾病有关。一个可能的原因是BD中的CT导致端粒缩短。
100名BD患者和100名健康对照者（HC）进行了年龄和性别的匹配。所有参与者均接受童年创伤问卷（CTQ）调查。随后，进行定量聚合酶链反应（q-PCR）以验证病例组和对照组的白细胞端粒长度（LTL）。
病例组中存在中度至重度CT亚型，其中情感虐待占35%，身体虐待占16%，性虐待占15%。与HC相比，BD患者的端粒明显更短。与有CT的健康对照者相比，有CT的BD患者的LTL明显更短。CT与LTL之间的关联在病例组和对照组中均无统计学意义。
我们的研究显示，46%的BD患者存在CT（中度至重度），而在年龄和性别匹配的健康对照者中这一比例为12%。除性虐待外，所有CT亚型在病例组中的比例均显著高于健康对照组。包括有CT的病例组的LTL平均得分显著低于健康对照组。
