Women who are overweight while pregnant are more likely to have babies who are biologically older than those born to women of a healthy weight.
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Our biological age is linked to the length of our telomeres – bits of DNA that cap the ends of our chromosomes. Our telomeres shrink every time our cells divide, and continue to shorten throughout life.
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Tim Nawrot at Hasselt University in Belgium…and his colleagues…found that a woman’s BMI seems to have a significant effect on the telomere length of her baby.
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But Catarina Henriques at the University of Sheffield, UK, isn’t so sure. Overweight people may already have shorter telomeres, something they may pass on to their children via their genes, rather than through the placenta, she says.
If that is the case, a father’s weight could play a role, too, says Henriques. “Just like for the mother, if the father’s BMI is higher, it may mean that his telomeres are shorter to start with, which could influence telomere length in the child,” she says. “This would need to be tested, though.”
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