Dr. Nanette Santoro and other medical professionals are hesitant to draw conclusions from a study finding shorter telomeres in chromosomes of women who gave birth.
Healthline recently wrote an article in response to a retrospective study published in the medical journal Human Reproduction that found women who gave birth had shorter telomeres than women who did not, indicating advanced cellular aging in mothers. This study contrasts with another study that found the opposite, and doctors and researchers say we know too little about telomeres and their relation to longevity to draw conclusions from this research.
“Reproductive fitness seems to correlate with overall physical fitness in most studies,” Dr. Santoro told Healthline in the article. “My interpretation of these data is that we probably don’t know enough about what telomere length is truly telling us to make conclusions at this point in time.”