The environment in your mother's womb may determine how well you age. The latest study on pregnant rats reveal that antioxidant supplementation decelerates and low oxygen levels accelerates aging in offspring.
Researchers found that giving pregnant rats antioxidants stalled aging in resulting offspring. However, limited oxygen accelerated aging in resulting offspring. Smoking during pregnancy or living in higher altitudes during pregnancy can lead to lower oxygen levels in human wombs, according to researchers.
The latest findings suggest for the first time that even fetuses can benefit from the anti-aging properties of antioxidants.
"Antioxidants are known to reduce ageing, but here, we show for the first time that giving them to pregnant mothers in the latter half of gestation can slow down the ageing clock of their offspring," study author Beth Allison of The Ritchie Center at Hudson Institute of Medical Research and Monash University in Melbourne said in a university release.
"This appears to be particularly important when there are complications with the pregnancy and the fetus is deprived of oxygen. Although this discovery was found using rats, it suggests a way that we may treat similar problems in humans," Allison added.
Not getting enough oxygen in the womb was associated with shorter telomeres in adult rats. Rats of mothers who had less oxygen during pregnancy were also more likely to develop heart disease and suffer problems with their blood vessels. However, antioxidant supplementation seemed to help counteract the effects caused by low oxygen levels in the womb.
Researchers noted that antioxidants also lengthened telomeres in offspring of mothers who received adequate levels of oxygen during pregnancy. The latest findings revealed that rats born to moms with appropriate oxygen levels and antioxidant supplementation during pregnancy had significantly longer telomeres than those born to moms with appropriate oxygen levels but no antioxidant supplementation.
"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," senior study author Dino Giussani from the Department of Physiology Development & Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge said in a statement.
"We already know that our genes interact with environmental risk factors, such as smoking, obesity and lack of exercise to increase our risk of heart disease, but here we've shown that the environment we're exposed to in the womb may be just as, if not more, important in programming a risk of adult-onset cardiovascular disease," Giussani concluded.
The latest findings were published in The FASEB Journal.
