Telomere Length and Symptoms of Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder in Children at 6-12 Years.

Objective: To explore the association between telomere length (TL) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in children at 6-12 years.
Method: Data from 1,759 children belonging to the HELIX project cohorts and the Asturias, Gipuzkoa and Valencia cohorts of INMA project were included. TL was determined by blood sample using a PCR protocol. ADHD symptoms were described by parents using the Conners' Parent Rating Scale-Revised: Short Form. Multiple negative binomial regression models adjusted for potential confounders were used to estimate associations.
Results: Overall estimates showed no associations between TL and ADHD symptoms. However, we observed that a longer TL was significantly associated with a lower risk of presenting hyperactivity symptoms in children belonging to the HELIX project (IRR = 0.93, 95% CI [0.87, 0.99]; p  = .022).
Conclusion: While our study did not find a consistent association between TL and ADHD symptoms across all cohorts, the significant association found within the HELIX cohort suggests that longer TL may be linked to a lower risk of hyperactivity symptoms. Further research is needed to explore this association in more detail.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.