Can Pregnancy Accelerate Biological Ageing?

A new study from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health shows that pregnancy can come at a price. The research, conducted among 1735 young people in the Philippines, shows that women who reported having been pregnant looked biologically older than women who had never been hopeful, and that women who had been pregnant more often looked biologically older than those who reported fewer pregnancies. Notably, the number of pregnancies conceived was not associated with biological aging in men of the same age cohort, suggesting that it has something to do with pregnancy or breastfeeding specifically accelerating biological aging. The findings were published in The Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences .

Biological Ageing and Pregnancy

This study is based on epidemiological evidence that high fertility can have a negative impact on women’s health and longevity. However, it was unknown whether the costs of reproduction occur earlier in life, before the onset of disease and age-related decline. Until now, one of the challenges has been to quantify biological ageing in young people. This challenge has been overcome through the use of a range of new tools that use DNA methylation (DNAm) to study different aspects of cellular ageing, health and mortality risk. Called “epigenetic clocks”, these tools allow researchers to study aging earlier in life, filling an important gap in the study of biological aging.

Epigenetic clocks have revolutionized the way we study biological aging across the life course, opening up new opportunities to study how and when the long-term health costs of reproduction and other life events come into play. The results suggest that pregnancy accelerates biological aging, and that these effects are evident in young women with high fertility.

The association between pregnancy history and biological age persisted even after accounting for several other factors associated with biological age, such as socioeconomic status, smoking and genetic variation, but was not present in men in the same sample. According to the researchers, this finding suggests that some aspect of childbearing – rather than sociocultural factors related to early fertility or sexual activity – influences biological ageing. Despite the striking findings, the researchers urge readers to consider the context, as many of the reported pregnancies in their baseline study took place in late adolescence, when women are still growing. They suggest that this type of pregnancy is particularly challenging for an adolescent mother, especially if her access to medical care, resources or other forms of support is limited.

The experts also acknowledge that there is still much work to be done, as it is not known to what extent accelerated epigenetic aging will manifest itself in poor health or mortality in affected individuals decades later. They also note that their current understanding of epigenetic clocks and their prediction of health and mortality comes largely from North America and Europe, but that the aging process can easily take different forms in the Philippines and elsewhere in the world. The researchers say their findings highlight the potential long-term impact of pregnancy on women’s health and the importance of caring for new parents, especially young mothers.

Pregnant Patients With Anxiety Have an Altered Immune System

But pregnancy can also affect other physical factors. For example, the immune system of pregnant women with anxiety differs biologically from that of pregnant women without anxiety. This is the result of a study by researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity, shows that pregnant women with anxiety have higher numbers of certain immune cells known as cytotoxic T cells; these cells attack infected or otherwise damaged cells in the body. Women with anxiety also showed differences in the activity of immune markers circulating in the blood.

According to the researchers, it is already known that anxiety during pregnancy, which is reported by more than 20 percent of those affected, is harmful to both parents and child. For example, it can increase the risk of premature birth and lower birth weight of the newborn. They found that the number of cytotoxic T-cells in women with anxiety was increased during pregnancy and decreased in the weeks following delivery. In women without anxiety, the activity of these cells decreased during pregnancy and continued to decrease after delivery. The researchers also observed that the activity of broadly pro-inflammatory cytokines, substances secreted by cells as part of the immune system’s response, was suppressed in women with anxiety during pregnancy and then increased after delivery, while the reverse pattern was seen in healthy women. This study could promote better treatment of anxiety in pregnant patients.