A new study points out that disorders caused by mental agitation may affect telomere length, thus making people age more. However, proper treatment can reverse this process. According to data from a large study, the telomere lengths of people with psychiatric disorders today are significantly shorter than those of people with psychiatric disorders and those recovering from psychotic disorders. This result implies that appropriate treatment for psychosis can help reverse the shortening telomeres. “In a study on depression and agitation conducted in the Netherlands, we looked at telomeres in more than 2,300 people with or without agitation. The results showed that telomeres were shorter in people who were in a state of agitation at the moment than in those controls, but the exact causal relationship needs to be experimentally explored.” The first author of the study, Josine Verhoeven of the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, said. The study was published in the Feb. 5 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry. Telomeres are a class of specially structured DNA complexes that wrap around the ends of chromosomes and slowly shorten with age, and are therefore considered to be indicators of cellular lifespan. Several previous studies have also suggested a relationship between depression and telomere shortening, but the relationship between agitation and telomere length has previously been unclear. This study included 1283 patients currently suffering from agitation, 459 recovered agitation patients, and 582 healthy individuals. The mean age of the total population was 41.7, and two-thirds of them were female. Anxiety symptoms included generalized agitation, social phobia, phobia of unfamiliar environments, and panic disorder. Telomere length was measured by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in lymphocytes and converted into base numbers. LTL results showed that there was a significant inverse correlation between telomere length and age. The average rate of telomere shortening was 14bp/year. Telomere length was greater in females than in males. In addition to age and sex, LTL was also associated with a variety of lifestyle factors. These included weight, history of smoking and alcohol, and other diseases. After correcting for these factors, the results showed that patients with current agitation had significantly shorter telomere lengths than controls and the recovered population (5431 vs. 5506 vs. 5499). “Although the shortening was not significant, given the normal rate of telomere shortening, the agitated patients were aging 3-5 years or more than the control population.” The researchers concluded. The difference in LTL values between the recovered and normal populations was not significant, yet there was a positive correlation between telomere length and time since recovery. The telomere length was significantly higher in those who had been in recovery for more than 10 years than those who had been in recovery for less than 10 years. This implies that telomere shortening is amenable to human intervention, thus providing clues for anti-aging treatment. The biological relationship behind telomere shortening in anxiety disorders deserves further investigation; shorter LTL values may indicate a disturbance in the body’s stress resistance system, which is common in patients with anxiety disorders. In line with this, a number of in vitro and in vivo experiments have found symptoms of oxidative stress, increased cortisol, and increased secretion of gross inflammatory factors in patients with agitation.” There are no direct clinical expectations at this time, however future studies will further explore the non-psychological, physiological boosts of anti-anxiety treatment.” Dr. Verhoeven remarked, “We are currently doing some clinical trials in this area.”