True fountain of youth Moms with many children stay young longer

The more, the better: mothers with many children stay young longer
"Children keep young," say one. Young children make parents age faster because of stress and lack of sleep, others say. What is really true? Scientists have now examined the cells of mothers in a study. It turned out that large-scale women stay younger longer.

Fast aging by children?
Some people say children look like a fountain of youth: they keep parents fit and on the move. Others emphasize circumstances such as crying babies, not being able to sleep at night, and constant worries about caring for offspring. This leads to a faster aging of the parents. But the latter does not seem to be right. As scientists from Canada now report, women age the slower the more children they have. According to the researchers, multiple mothers are better protected from DNA degradation.

Mothers with many children feel young and vital longer. (Image: Kzenon / fotolia.com)

Children keep women young
For their study, the team of scientists at Simon Fraser University examined the telomeres of test persons - those DNA components that protect the genome in cell divisions and whose length is an indication of the lifespan of the cell. Telomeres are the ends of the chromosomes that become shorter with each cell division. If they are too short, a cell can no longer divide and cell death sets in. Longer telomeres are a sign of a lower biological age. In the journal "PLOS ONE", the researchers now reported that they found that the more children a woman had born, the longer her telomeres were.

The more offspring, the better
The study participants were 75 women from the Maya people of Cakchiquel (Guatemala). The team led by Pablo Nepomnaschy accompanied the subjects over a period of 13 years. Researchers determined length of telomeres of women, repeated procedure 13 years later and compared the collected data. The scientists showed that there is a clear correlation between the number of children and the length of the telomeres. The number of daughters and sons thus influences how quickly a woman ages, in which case the more offspring the stronger the positive effect.

Cause for slower aging still unclear
Actually, the researchers had assumed that childbearing was at the expense of biological age. So far, they could only speculate on the reason for the slower aging. According to Nepomnashy and colleagues, on the one hand, the hormone estrogen could have an effect, which produces about 200 times more during pregnancy and protects the telomeres from aging. But it could also be because in some cultures - such as the Cakchiquel - mothers receive special support from family members or friends. Further investigations are intended to shed light on what exactly is decisive. (Ad)