Research suggests that women who give birth to more children age more slowly. (Image : Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan.13 (Korea Bizwire) – Research suggests that women who give birth to more children age more slowly.
According to the English journal Daily Mail, a Canadian research team at Simon Fraser University compared the number of children of 75 natives in Guatemala, with the length of their telomeres.
Telomeres are the base sequences of chromosomes. As segmentation continues, telomeres get shorter and shorter, and are known to be the factor that decides aging and life span. In other words, those with longer telomeres age slowly and live longer.
The research team collected the DNA of the women before and after a 13-year period, and compared the results. The data showed that as women had more children, their telomeres decreased in length at a slower rate.
The research team commented that the results completely reversed the hypothesis that giving birth more would speed up the aging process, stating that the study was meaningful.
They explained that estrogen levels increase in the body after giving birth, and the strong anti-oxidant effect of estrogen stops telomeres from getting shorter.
However, the team added that social factors may have acted as variables.
Since women in the community receive more support from their society as they have more children, it is possible that they might have more energy to spare on metabolism instead of expending it all in taking care of their children, slowing down the aging process.
By Francine Jung (francine.jung@kobizmedia.co.kr)
