Gaby
A six-year study suggests pregnancy may speed up biological aging in women.
Researchers at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York conducted the study on the health of a local population in the Philippines. They analyzed the reproductive histories and DNA samples of 1,735 volunteers — 825 women and 910 men — as reported by The Guardian.
The team estimated participants’ biological age using six different epigenetic clocks, molecular tools that calculate biological age from patterns of DNA methylation.
Data from the female participants showed that each reported pregnancy was linked to two to three months of biological aging. Women who had multiple pregnancies during the study period showed an even greater rate of biological aging.
The association between pregnancy and biological aging held up after the authors controlled for factors including socioeconomic status, smoking, genetic variation, and environmental conditions.
Calen Ryan, lead author and a research scientist at Columbia University’s Center on Aging, said, “Pregnancy accelerates biological aging, and this effect is observed in young women with high fertility.” He said this is the first study to link the number of pregnancies a woman has to changes in her biological age.
Ryan added that researchers still have much to learn about the role of pregnancy and other aspects of reproduction in aging. “We also do not know to what extent the accelerated epigenetic aging of these individuals will manifest as poor health or mortality decades later,” he added.
The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
