medRxiv
Biological aging markers in South African women with HIV and variable exposure to childhood maltreatment
By Maloka, K. M. S., Spies, G., du Plessis, S. and 4 others.
Abstract
Introduction
HIV and childhood maltreatment (CM) are both chronic stressors that disproportionately affect women, with each contributing to accelerated biological aging. Whether biological aging markers are convergent and associate with HIV and CM is unclear.
Methods
We studied 238 women (122 with HIV), characterised for CM severity, and assessed biological aging using absolute telomere length (aTL), mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn), magnetic resonance imaging-based brain-predicted age difference (MRI-BPAD), and DNA methylation age (DNAmAge) clocks. CM was measured with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form total score. We examined intercorrelations among biological aging markers to assess convergence and conducted linear regression models to test moderation by HIV status and CM severity.
