Telomere length is longer in women with late maternal age

Abstract

Objective Maternal age at birth of last child has been associated with maternal longevity. The aim of this study was to determine whether elderly women with a history of late maternal age at last childbirth had a longer leukocyte telomere length compared with those with maternal age at last childbirth of 29 years or less. Methods A nested case control study was conducted utilizing data from the Long Life Family Study. Three hundred and eighty-seven women who gave birth to at least 1 child and lived to the top 5th percentile of their birth cohort, or died before the top 5th percentile of their birth cohort died, but were at least 70 years old, were studied. Logistic regression models using generalized estimating equations were used to determine the association between tertiles of telomere length and maternal age at last childbirth, adjusting for covariates. Results Age at birth of the last child was significantly associated with leukocyte telomere length. Compared with women who gave birth to their last child before the age of 29, women who were past the age of 33 when they had their last child were 2–3 times more likely to have leukocyte telomere length in the second and third tertiles than in the first tertile. Conclusion These findings show an association between longer leukocyte telomere length and a later maternal age at birth of last child, suggesting that extended maternal age at last childbirth may be a marker for longevity.

Oxytocin-mediated social enrichment promotes longer telomeres and novelty seeking

“…Despite females appearing to have longer TL than males ( Merrill et al, 2017 ), TL elongation in social females offers a potential predictor for extended lifespan in humans ( Holt-Lunstad et al, 2010 ) and rodents such as rats ( Yee et al, 2008 ), who typically engage in social relationships. Interestingly, TL was recently shown to positively correlate with the number of surviving children born to a woman ( Fagan et al, 2017 ), suggesting a possible parallel link between reproductive success and longevity in females.…”

Dynamics of leukocyte telomere length in pregnant women living with HIV, and HIV-negative pregnant women: A longitudinal observational study

“…Moreover, we could not ascertain whether the decrease in LTL seen post-partum in WLWH is related to pregnancy ending or is specific to this population. Older maternal age at the time of last child’s birth has been associated with longer LTL [89]. Because our participants were still in their reproductive years, and since many had subsequent pregnancies, we could not consider this variable.…”

Leukocyte Telomere Length Is Unrelated to Cognitive Performance Among Non-Demented and Demented Persons: An Examination of Long Life Family Study Participants

“…All regression analyses were adjusted for potential confounders such as sex (male vs. female), age (in years), education (less than college, some college, or post college), country (USA or Denmark), generation (proband vs. offspring), and lymphocyte percentage. Since different leukocyte subpopulations have varying replicative histories and may thus differ in telomere length, we wanted to account for variations in leukocyte differential counts (Fagan et al, 2017). Lymphocytes are generally longer-lived than neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, or monocytes.…”

“…Lymphocytes are generally longer-lived than neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, or monocytes. Therefore, we adjusted for the percentage of lymphocytes as a fraction of the total WBC count, analogous to what was done previously by Fagan et al (2017) in this LLFS cohort. SPSS version 25.0 (IBM Corp., 2017) was used to perform all the descriptive and regression analyses.…”