"Having Children Accelerates Aging"… Findings from US Researchers

"More Pregnancies Accelerate Aging"

A study has found that pregnancy affects biological aging in women.

On the 8th (local time), according to the British daily The Guardian, researchers from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in the United States published the results of their investigation into the effects of pregnancy on aging in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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The researchers conducted a long-term study of the reproductive histories and DNA samples of 1,735 young people (825 women and 910 men) in the Philippines. They also calculated their biological ages using an epigenetic clock, a genetic tool that estimates biological age.

The study found that pregnancy in women was associated with 2 to 3 months of biological aging. During the six-year follow-up period, the more pregnancies a woman had, the faster her biological aging progressed.

The researchers did not find any correlation between biological aging in men and the number of pregnancies of their children's mothers.

Callen Ryan, a senior author of the study and a researcher at Columbia University's Aging Center, explained, "The results suggest that pregnancy accelerates biological aging, and this effect is clearly observed in young women with high fertility."

However, he added, "There is still much to learn about the role of pregnancy in the aging process and other aspects of reproduction. It is unknown to what extent accelerated epigenetic aging in certain individuals will lead to health deterioration or death decades later."