Sep 28, 2015 02:26 PM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

New research suggests that people with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and their mothers have a shorter lifespan than the average population.

Brazilian scientists found that ADHD kids and their mothers are more likely to have shorter telomeres, a hallmark of cellular aging, which is associated with increased risk for chronic diseases and conditions like diabetes, obesity and cancer. They did not find any alteration in the father's telomere length.

Telomere shortening happens naturally with aging, researches indicate the process is accelerated by psychological and biological stress. The shorter the telomeres are, shorter is the biological "life expectancy" of one.

"When people think about behavioral issues with children, they think about the psychological component and how that impacts school performance and interaction with society," Paulo Mattos, one of the study authors said in a statement. "These kind of impact are real, but what we are showing for the first time now is that TDAH can impact at the cellular level, at the DNA."

For the study, researchers assessed the length of telomeres from 61 ADHD children age 6 to 16 and their parents.

Among children, who are beginning their lives, researchers found shorter telomeres than those that would be expected for their ages. The researchers also noticed that hyperactivity symptoms are more related to the telomere length than inattention symptoms. They observed that higher levels of hyperactivity in children were associated with shorter relative telomere in ADHD children and in their mothers.

"This makes sense if you think that hyperactivity is the symptom that affects more negatively the family and causes more stress," Mattos said. "It is usually the reason why parents search for medical care in the first place."

The findings underscore the importance of intervening early to address behavior issues in children to prevent psychosocial stress and shortening of telomeres.

The findings are detailed in the journal Frontiers of Molecular Neuroscience. 

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