Early Adversity May Shorten Child’s Life

WEDNESDAY, May 18 (HealthDay News) — Deprivation and neglect can cause premature aging of children’s chromosomes, a new study suggests.

Researchers examined DNA samples collected from institutionalized children (62 boys and 47 girls) in Romania taking part in a long-term study. Some of the children remained in the institution, while others were transferred to high-quality foster care at different ages.


Children who spent more time in an institution before age 5 had premature shortening of chromosome tips (telomeres) when they reached ages 6 to 10, the researchers found.

“The telomere is designed to protect the chromosome, so accelerating how early in life telomeres lose length correlates with shortened life span,” principal investigator Charles Nelson, director of the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience at Children’s Hospital Boston, said in a hospital news release. “Children institutionalized early in life have shortened telomeres, which may lead to health consequences downstream, including premature aging.”

He and his colleagues found differences between girls and boys. The strongest predictor of telomere shortening for girls was the amount of time spent in the institution before 22 months of age. For boys, it was the amount of time spent in the institution before 54 months of age.

The study was published online May 17 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Previous research has linked shorter telomere length in adults with cognitive defects and increased rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

“One question we are currently studying is whether telomere length can recover as a child spends more time in foster care, or whether the shortening we observed reflects a permanent change,” Nelson said.

More information

The University of Utah has more about telomeres.

– Robert Preidt

SOURCE: Children’s Hospital Boston, news release, May 17, 2011

Last Updated: May 18, 2011

Copyright © 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Skin Infestation a Delusion, Study Says

By Anne Harding

MONDAY, May 16, 2011 (Health.com) — For years, dermatologists have been aware of—and baffled by—people who feel a constant creepy-crawly sensation beneath their skin, which they believe is due to bugs, worms, or eggs below the surface.

Now, in the largest study to date to examine skin samples from patients with these symptoms, doctors have firm proof that these infestations
—known as delusional parasitosis or delusional infestation—are not real. The researchers acknowledge, however, that the findings may not be enough convince many of these patients.

Patients often feel dismissed when doctors reassure them that the infestation is all in their head, and many continue to believe they are teeming with bugs even when skin biopsies come back negative.

“It’s almost impossible to get them to shake this belief, no matter how much evidence you produce to the contrary,” says Mark D. P. Davis, MD, a professor of dermatology at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn.


Antipsychotic drugs are the standard treatment for delusional infestation. But, Dr. Davis says, “A lot of patients with this disorder don’t want to take these drugs because they don’t feel they have a delusional disorder.”

Some patients who experience this skin-crawling sensation believe it is caused by textile-like fibers produced by an unknown organism. Along with a group of sympathetic doctors and advocates, these patients have pushed for the condition to be officially recognized as Morgellons disease, and have lobbied—successfully—for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate it.

However, most doctors maintain that the condition is psychological rather than physical. In a new study, published this week in the Archives of Dermatology, Dr. Davis and his colleagues sought to confirm this view by presenting the results of skin biopsies taken from patients who were diagnosed with delusional infestation at the Mayo Clinic between 2001 and 2007.

The researchers performed 80 biopsies. As expected, none showed evidence of skin infestation, although 49 patients did have some skin inflammation, known as dermatitis. This inflammation might be due to some underlying cause, such as allergies, or it could have been caused by the patient’s efforts to remove the bugs or objects by digging them out or even trying to burn them, Dr. Davis says.

In addition, 80 of the study participants—including some who also had biopsies taken—supplied their own skin samples to the doctors. Ten of these specimens contained insects, such as a mite or tick, but only one such bug was actually capable of causing an infestation; it was a pubic louse, but the patient’s biopsy did not show any signs that his or her skin was infested with the lice.

The CDC recently completed its own study of the condition, which the agency refers to as unexplained dermopathy, but the results have not yet been published.