Looking for clues about your real age? Your grandparents' education might provide clues

While a healthy diet, exercise, and regular doctor's visits can help you live a long, healthy life, new research identifies one factor that's outside of our control: whether your grandparents went to college.

The study, by researchers from Drexel University and colleagues from the University of California and the University of North Carolina, was recently published in the journal Neurology. Social Sciences and MedicineThe study is titled, “Grandparental Educational Attainment is Associated with Epigenetic-Based Acceleration of Aging in Grandchildren in the National Growth and Health Study.”

Studying data across three generations (education of parents and grandparents, and health data for parents and children), the research group found a statistically significant association between grandparents' education level and their grandchildren's epigenetic-based “chronological age” (a succinct definition of what “chronological age” means – how old an individual is based on their health profile and cells).

The grandchildren of college-educated grandparents Biological aging The finding that people who have a younger biological age (i.e., younger than their chronological age) than people whose grandparents did not graduate from college is based on five different epigenetic aging clocks. These clocks were generated using saliva swabs: Biological Processes It uses a property of DNA methylation, which changes as the body ages, to predict an individual's age based on their health profile at the cellular level.

“The research community Social factors“Social and economic factors and early life adversity can influence health trajectories,” said lead author Agus Sulakhman, PhD, an assistant professor in the Dawn Saif School of Public Health who completed the study while doing postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco.

“We know from animal studies that health can be passed down for generations from grandparents to grandchildren. But now we have solid data in humans that shows that parents' health is passed down for generations. Socioeconomic factors Parents influence the health of their children, and that influence extends beyond that to subsequent generations.”

Previous human studies in this field have shown that Exposure to traumatic events,for example The Holocaust and Genocide of the Tutsimay affect gene methylation in survivors and their children. The data from this study fills an important gap by examining the general population and education level, a common crude indicator of exposure to social stressors. The authors say that parental education level is a useful proxy for a child's early socioeconomic status and exposure to social stressors.

“Parental socioeconomic advantage during childhood may be associated with improved health outcomes in their offspring. Epigenetic mechanisms“Especially through the maternal line,” Sulakhman said.

“This understanding of the nature of social advantage and the intergenerational transmission of health should make us rethink our values. I would like to see more resources invested in education and health, the factors that shape the health of our descendants, even before we are born.”

Epigenetic clocks show promise Life expectancy estimation tooland can provide insight into Risk of chronic disease and other health outcomesThe tests can cost consumers hundreds of dollars, but experts say costs are likely to come down as technology improves.

The mothers NHLBI Growth and Health Study (NGHS1) when they were 9 to 10 years old, and were recruited again 30 years later. National Growth and Health Survey (NGHS 2) will collect health and education information, as well as health information to determine epigenetic aging, or biological age, of the youngest children (ages 2-17).

The researchers also took into account other factors that may affect a child's health, such as the grandchild's age, sex, the child's body mass index (BMI), and the mother's characteristics (her family structure during her childhood, her health, and her marital status).

The research team also wanted to understand what might help explain intergenerational transmission, namely whether maternal health could help explain the transmission effect between grandparents' education and the biological age of their grandchildren. They looked at maternal health during childhood and adulthood. Health DataThe study measured factors such as BMI, cardiovascular health, and adult C-reactive protein to gauge inflammation in the body, and found that maternal health explained a small portion of the association between grandparents' education and their grandchildren's epigenetic age (14.5% to be exact).

“The association between grandparents' socioeconomic status and their grandchildren's epigenetic age is a remarkable finding across generations,” said Elissa Epel, PhD, professor at the University of California, San Francisco and senior author of the paper. “This opens up a myriad of possible explanations that will need to be replicated. For now, we know that poor maternal metabolic status partially mediates this relationship.”

The authors are following this cohort to investigate grandparental and parental predictors of their offspring in adulthood. They are also investigating social and psychological determinants of accelerated epigenetic aging in samples with chronic conditions, such as breast cancer survivors and chronic kidney disease. However, the authors caution that more research is needed to explore the myriad factors that influence adolescent health trajectories.

“In the United States, we tend to place too much emphasis on personal responsibility when it comes to health, and many people blame others for poor health,” Sulakman says, “but the reality is that health is much more complicated than that. Some factors, like genetics and the genetic epigenetics we're born with, are outside of our control. We hope this will help us to be more generous and compassionate towards ourselves and our communities.”

In addition to Surakman and Epel, authors of the paper include Elissa Hamrat of the University of California, San Francisco, Anthony S. Zannas of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Steve Holbert of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Barbara Laraia of the University of California, Berkeley.