Our study in rats suggests that the ageing clock begins ticking even before we are born and enter this world, which may surprise many people
- Dino Giussani
However, the offspring of mothers with lower levels of oxygen in the womb – which, in humans, can be a consequence of smoking during pregnancy or of pregnancy at high altitude – aged more quickly in adulthood.
Our DNA is ‘written’ onto chromosomes, of which humans carry 23 pairs. The ends of each chromosome are known as telomeres and act in a similar way to the plastic that binds the ends of shoelaces, preventing the chromosomes from fraying. As we age, these telomeres become shorter and shorter, and hence their length can be used as a proxy to measure ageing.
In a study funded in the UK by the British Heart Foundation and published in The FASEB Journal, scientists report a study that involved measuring the length of telomeres in blood vessels of adult laboratory rats born from mothers who were or were not fed antioxidants during normal or complicated pregnancy.
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Image: Portrait #122 - Coline - While she was smoking (cropped)
Credit: Valentin Ottone
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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