Pregnancy in early adulthood is associated with increased biological aging, according to a study that estimates that with each pregnancy, biological age increases by 2.4 to 2.8 months.
This is the main conclusion of the investigation conducted by the Mailman School of Public Health in Columbia University (USA) and was performed on 1,735 healthy young men in the Philippines.
“Pregnancy can have a cost,” the authors point out.
According to this analysis, women who had at least one pregnancy were biologically older than those who had never been pregnant, and the more pregnancies, the greater the biological aging.
This study shows that every pregnancy is associated with it Additional biological aging by two to three monthsbased on the epidemiological results according to which High fertility can have negative side effects on health and longevity The university said in a statement.
But what was not known were the costs of childbearing early in life, before disease and age-related decline became apparent.
DNA reveals the secrets of aging
To reach these conclusions, the researchers used a range of new tools that use DNA methylation to study various aspects of cell aging, health risks and mortality.
Methylation is a process that determines when and how genes that control the normal development of an organism and that can be affected by environmental causes are activated and deactivated.
The tools used, called “epigenetic clocks,” make it possible to analyze aging in the early stages of life, thus filling a fundamental gap in the study of biological aging.
“Epigenetic clocks have revolutionized the way we study biological aging across the lifespan, opening new opportunities to study how and when the long-term health costs of reproduction and other life events occur,” said co-author Kalin Ryan.
Pregnancy and breastfeeding increase this aging
Results published in Banas MagazineThe researcher points out that pregnancy accelerates biological aging and that these effects are evident in young women with high fertility.
The relationship between pregnancy history and biological age persisted even after other factors were taken into account associated with biological aging, such as socioeconomic status, smoking, and genetic variation, but were not observed among men in the same sample.
This means that It is something specifically related to pregnancy or breastfeeding that accelerates biological agingaccording to the study.
However, the researcher acknowledged that there is still work to be done to understand the role of pregnancy and other aspects of childbirth in the aging process.
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