Health. Do abused children age faster than others?

Behind the physical and psychological after-effects lies another reality: child abuse can profoundly alter a child's biology, triggering molecular changes that can last for decades.

Because child abuse seems to accelerate the aging process itself, exposing people to chronic diseases, according to various scientific publications.

But researchers are still struggling to understand how these early experiences trigger such profound changes, especially in very young children.

Besides the pathophysiological complexity, this is probably because previous studies have relied on inappropriate biological markers or subjective self-assessments.

There was also a lack of tools to examine the biological alterations and changes in social behavior that occur in abused children.

Japanese study advances knowledge

To fill these gaps, a research team from the University of Fukui in Japan conducted a study examining both biological aging and the social behavior of young children.

Their findings, just published in the leading scientific journal PLOS One, shed light on how child abuse accelerates biological aging and impairs social development.

To do this, the researchers studied 96 children aged 4 to 5, comparing 36 who had suffered severe abuse with 60 who were developing normally.

They measured biological aging by analyzing DNA methylation patterns (chemical marks placed on genetic material that allow the cell to decide which genes should be turned on or off, without changing the DNA code itself) using a new method the team pioneered in previous work.

These molecular signatures, captured from genetic material in buccal swabs, essentially indicate the rate of cellular aging in a child's body.

Additionally, they used eye-tracking technology to monitor the children's social attention patterns, measuring how long they looked at different items in carefully selected video sequences.

Accelerated biological aging

The team found that children who experienced abuse exhibited accelerated biological aging compared to those with normal development.

Additionally, they spent significantly less time looking at the eyes when shown videos of human faces. This decreased attention to the eyes (a key aspect of social interaction and comprehension) suggests differences in how maltreated children process social information.

Moreover, both accelerated biological aging and reduced eye contact were strongly linked to higher scores on measures of emotional and behavioral difficulties, determined using questionnaire-based tools.

Child abuse can therefore leave invisible, but measurable, traces on the child's biological and social development.

These findings highlight the importance of early intervention and support for maltreated children to mitigate the long-term effects of accelerated aging and sociocognitive deficits.

"By identifying early warning signs, we can intervene earlier and provide targeted support," the researchers conclude, "to improve social skills, reduce emotional stress, and promote healthier development, which could prevent more serious problems later in life."

Source: Ochiai K, Nishitani S, Yao A, Hiraoka D, Kawata NY, Suzuki S, et al. (2025) Behavioral and emotional difficulties in maltreated children: Associations with epigenetic clock changes and visual attention to social cues. PLoS One 20(5): e0321952. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321952