Overweight Mothers May Give Birth To Biologically "Older" Babies

Before trying to conceive you need to maintain an optimal body mass index (BMI), according to a study, women who are overweight may give birth to biologically older babies than those born to normal weight mothers. In the study,  an overweight mother’s body mass index (BMI) was linked to shorter telomere lengths in the baby’s chromosomes which means a shorter lifespans. 

“Compared with newborns of mothers with a normal BMI, newborns of women with obesity are older on a molecular level, because shortened telomere lengths mean that their cells have shorter lifespans,” study co-author Tim Nawrot said in a press release. “So maintaining a healthy BMI during a woman’s reproductive age may promote molecular longevity in the offspring.”

So what's a telomere?

A telomere is found at each end of a chromosomes, they protect the end of the chromosome from deterioration. According to Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Associate Professor Jeffrey Craig "They’re like the plastic ends on our shoelaces,”

It's normal for telomeres to shorten as we age, but some people's own shorten at a faster rate than others. So the shorter a person’s telomeres are, the quicker their cells die. “From very early on in our development, our telomeres start to shorten,” Craig continues. “When we age, our telomeres shorten and when they get very short, our chromosomes start to fray and come apart, and then our cells die.”

 

 

Telomere lengths have been used for years to study biological aging, and shortened telomeres have been linked with aging-related diseases like “cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, and increased mortality.” 

The researchers looked at data from 743 mothers aged 17-44 and their newborn babies, taking into account their weight before they got pregnant. They found that just a 1-point increase in the mother’s BMI was linked to the telomere shortening by 50 base pairs—that’s how much an adult loses in a year.

So before trying to get pregnant, endeavour to lose that extra weight (check your BMI first), when you're finally pregnant, eat healthy and live healthy. Avoid these 5 foods when trying to conceive.