At the cellular level, a child's loss of a father is associated with increased stress

The absence of a father -- due to incarceration, death, separation or divorce -- has adverse physical and behavioral consequences for a growing child. But little is known about the biological processes that underlie this link between father loss and child well-being. In a new study, a team of researchers reports that the loss of a father has a significant adverse effect on telomeres, the protective nucleoprotein end caps of chromosomes.