03-25-2024, 12:46 PM
This post was last modified 04-09-2024, 05:22 PM by Maxmars.
Edit Reason: formatting and title fix
An interesting pregnancy phenomenon has been studied and found to be remarkable.
As it turns out, when women are pregnant, a process known as DNA methylation causes the mother to undergo changes to her cells which are usually associated with aging. It seems to point to a stress on the mother which not only ages her by one to two years, but amazingly reverses itself after the pregnancy and if she breastfeeds, reverses itself and "undoes" the process, sometimes even beyond the pseudo-aging starting point.
From Science.org: Pregnancy may increase biological age by 2 years—though some people end up ‘younger’
Subtitled: Body’s cells appear to age faster during pregnancy, but they might recover—and even thrive—in the months after birth
Pregnancy is the ultimate stress test.
Nurturing a growing fetus requires a series of profound physical, hormonal, and chemical changes that may rewire every major organ in the body and can cause serious health complications such as hypertension and preeclampsia. But does being pregnant actually take years off your life?
According to the results of a new study, it just might. Today in Cell Metabolism, scientists report that the stress of pregnancy can cause a person’s biological age to increase by up to 2 years—a trend that may reverse itself in the months that follow. In some cases, the authors write, those who breastfeed their children after giving birth may end up biologically “younger” than during early pregnancy.
This article might be the highlight of my day. I had always wondered if the true 'meme" of pregnancy was ever rightfully characterized as "using up" the mother... but as it turns out, the nature of life is to balance everything. There is no doubt that childbearing is a tremendous burden on women... but it not a "destructive" burden by design.
Because pregnancy is so stressful on the body, it wasn’t too shocking to learn that it could also cause premature aging. But Gladyshev and his colleagues also found evidence that this effect partially reversed in the days following childbirth, when the body begins to recover.
...
The discovery that biological aging isn’t necessarily a linear process “came as a real surprise,” says Kieran O’Donnell, a perinatal researcher at the Yale School of Medicine.
...
But blood samples from 68 participants, collected 3 months after giving birth, revealed a dramatic about-face. Although being pregnant had initially aged their cells between 1 and 2 years, O’Donnell says, their biological age now appeared to be 3 to 8 years younger than it had been during early pregnancy—with different epigenetic clocks algorithms providing slightly bigger or smaller estimates. The effect appeared to be slightly muted in people who had a higher body weight prior to pregnancy, whereas it was enhanced in women who reported exclusively breastfeeding.
Let's hope this information can dissuade any who engender "fear" of pregnancy as a 'malignant' condition. That of course may never end due to the 'social' aspects of modern human life... but hey... it's a hope of mine.
As it turns out, when women are pregnant, a process known as DNA methylation causes the mother to undergo changes to her cells which are usually associated with aging. It seems to point to a stress on the mother which not only ages her by one to two years, but amazingly reverses itself after the pregnancy and if she breastfeeds, reverses itself and "undoes" the process, sometimes even beyond the pseudo-aging starting point.
From Science.org: Pregnancy may increase biological age by 2 years—though some people end up ‘younger’
Subtitled: Body’s cells appear to age faster during pregnancy, but they might recover—and even thrive—in the months after birth
Pregnancy is the ultimate stress test.
Nurturing a growing fetus requires a series of profound physical, hormonal, and chemical changes that may rewire every major organ in the body and can cause serious health complications such as hypertension and preeclampsia. But does being pregnant actually take years off your life?
According to the results of a new study, it just might. Today in Cell Metabolism, scientists report that the stress of pregnancy can cause a person’s biological age to increase by up to 2 years—a trend that may reverse itself in the months that follow. In some cases, the authors write, those who breastfeed their children after giving birth may end up biologically “younger” than during early pregnancy.
This article might be the highlight of my day. I had always wondered if the true 'meme" of pregnancy was ever rightfully characterized as "using up" the mother... but as it turns out, the nature of life is to balance everything. There is no doubt that childbearing is a tremendous burden on women... but it not a "destructive" burden by design.
Because pregnancy is so stressful on the body, it wasn’t too shocking to learn that it could also cause premature aging. But Gladyshev and his colleagues also found evidence that this effect partially reversed in the days following childbirth, when the body begins to recover.
...
The discovery that biological aging isn’t necessarily a linear process “came as a real surprise,” says Kieran O’Donnell, a perinatal researcher at the Yale School of Medicine.
...
But blood samples from 68 participants, collected 3 months after giving birth, revealed a dramatic about-face. Although being pregnant had initially aged their cells between 1 and 2 years, O’Donnell says, their biological age now appeared to be 3 to 8 years younger than it had been during early pregnancy—with different epigenetic clocks algorithms providing slightly bigger or smaller estimates. The effect appeared to be slightly muted in people who had a higher body weight prior to pregnancy, whereas it was enhanced in women who reported exclusively breastfeeding.
Let's hope this information can dissuade any who engender "fear" of pregnancy as a 'malignant' condition. That of course may never end due to the 'social' aspects of modern human life... but hey... it's a hope of mine.
