Science
Children keep you young? Pregnancy causes women to age faster, study suggests
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Children ensure that you stay active and fit for a long time, right? A study by Columbia University in New York now refutes this to some extent. Because at least for mothers, that doesn’t seem to be entirely true…
According to researchers at New York University, one is driving Pregnancy massively advances the aging process of women. However, they found out just how extreme in a comprehensive, year-long study.
Study examines biological aging in women
Calen P. Ryan and a research team at Columbia University have a new one study carried out. They examined the blood of young women (and men) and were able to detect changes in DNA levels that indicated an older biological age after pregnancy. In addition to the genetic analyzes, the test subjects, who were between 20 and 22 years old and came from the Philippines, were questioned on the topic in the “Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey”.
According to “Focus”, the researchers compared 1,735 data sets with the epigenetic changes in question, the DNA methylations. If certain common combinations arise, these are understood as epigenetic clocks. They can be used to estimate a person’s biological age. A total of six such markers were evaluated in the study and two clear trends were registered.
Biological age increases with pregnancy
Compared to 511 childless subjects, evidence of an older biological age was found in all six epigenetic clocks of the 314 women who had been pregnant at least once – meaning they appeared to be four to even 14 months older than the childless subjects. Six years after the test, 331 pregnant women took part in the test again. The result: The women who were pregnant for at least the second time and had given birth to a child had aged more than mothers with one child. According to scientists, this result was not based on different living conditions or anything similar.
And what about the fathers?
Interesting: Men do not have to worry about their biological age being affected by their fatherhood. These were also included in the study and examined by Ryan’s team. So it seems as if the effects only appear in mothers. However, there is still criticism of the study: Since the test subjects were very young and also came from households with relatively low or middle incomes in and around the Philippine city of Cebu, the results cannot be transferred 1:1 to other mothers. Factors such as different age, situation, place of residence or access to good medical care play a particular role during pregnancy and are therefore likely to be reflected in the study.
Sources used: focus.de, pnas.org