Multiple pregnancies might make women's cells age faster

Multiple pregnancies might make women's cells age more quickly, a new study suggests.

A Northwestern University study, led by Calen Ryan and Christopher Kuzawa of Northwestern and Dan Eisenberg at the University of Washington, helps explain why women with many children tend to show signs of accelerated aging.

The findings were reached by looking at two separate markers of cellular aging telomere length and epigenetic age in hundreds of young women with different reproductive histories in the Philippines.

Lead author of the study, Ryan said, "Telomere length and epigenetic age are cellular markers that independently predict mortality, and both appeared 'older' in women who had more pregnancies in their reproductive histories."

Cellular aging was accelerated by between 0.5 and 2 years for each additional pregnancy, a surprisingly large effect according to the researchers.

Senior author of the study, Kuzawa said, "Paradoxically, even though a woman's biological age was higher with each child that she had, if a woman was pregnant when the measurements were taken, her epigenetic age, and to a lesser extent her telomeres, looked 'younger' than predicted for her chronological age." Read complete article