New mothers' sleep loss linked to accelerated aging
Too little sleep in first six months after birth can add 3 to 7 years to women's `biological age,' UCLA scientists report

Date:
August 5, 2021
Source:
University of California - Los Angeles
Summary:
When new mothers complain that all those sleepless nights caring
for their newborns are taking years off their life, they just
might be right.

A year after giving birth, the 'biological age' of mothers who
slept less than seven hours a night at the six-month mark was three
to seven years older than those who logged seven hours or more,
the scientists report.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
When new mothers complain that all those sleepless nights caring for
their newborns are taking years off their life, they just might be right,
UCLA research published this summer in the journal Sleep Health suggests.


========================================================================== Scientists studied 33 mothers during their pregnancies and the first year
of their babies' lives, analyzing the women's DNA from blood samples to determine their "biological age," which can differ from chronological
age. They found that a year after giving birth, the biological age of
mothers who slept less than seven hours a night at the six-month mark
was three to seven years older than those who logged seven hours or more.

Mothers who slept less than seven hours also had shorter telomeres
in their white blood cells. These small pieces of DNA at the ends of chromosomes act as protective caps, like the plastic tips on the ends
of shoelaces. Shortened telomeres have been linked to a higher risk of
cancers, cardiovascular and other diseases, and earlier death.

"The early months of postpartum sleep deprivation could have a lasting
effect on physical health," said the study's first author, Judith Carroll, UCLA's George F. Solomon Professor of Psychobiology. "We know from a
large body of research that sleeping less than seven hours a night is detrimental to health and increases the risk of age-related diseases."
While participants' nightly sleep ranged from five to nine hours, more
than half were getting less than seven hours, both six months and one
year after giving birth, the researchers report.

"We found that with every hour of additional sleep, the mother's
biological age was younger," said Carroll, a member of the Cousins Center
for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA's Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. "I, and many other sleep scientists,
consider sleep health to be just as vital to overall health as diet and exercise." Carroll urged new mothers take advantage of opportunities
to get a little extra sleep, like taking naps during the day when their
baby is asleep, accepting offers of assistance from family and friends,
and, when possible, asking their partner to help with the baby during
the night or early morning. "Taking care of your sleep needs will help
you and your baby in the long run," she said.



========================================================================== Co-author Christine Dunkel Schetter, a distinguished professor of
psychology and psychiatry at UCLA, said the study results "and other
findings on maternal postpartum mental health provide impetus for better supporting mothers of young infants so that they can get sufficient sleep
-- possibly through parental leave so that both parents can bear some
of the burden of care, and through programs for families and fathers."
Dunkel Schetter added that while accelerated biological aging linked to
sleep loss may increase women's health risks, it doesn't automatically
cause harm to their bodies. "We don't want the message to be that
mothers are permanently damaged by infant care and loss of sleep,"
she emphasized. "We don't know if these effects are long lasting."
'This aisle is closed': Using epigenetics to determine biological age
The study used the latest scientific methods of analyzing changes in DNA
to assess biological aging -- also known as epigenetic aging, Dunkel
Schetter said. DNA provides the code for making proteins, which carry
out many functions in the cells of our body, and epigenetics focuses on
whether regions of this code are "open" or "closed." "You can think of
DNA as a grocery store," Carroll said, "with lots of basic ingredients to
build a meal. If there is a spill in one aisle, it may be closed, and you
can't get an item from that aisle, which might prevent you from making a recipe. When access to DNA code is 'closed,' then those genes that code
for specific proteins cannot be expressed and are therefore turned off." Because specific sites within DNA are turned on or off with aging,
the process acts as a sort of clock, Carroll said, allowing scientists
to estimate individuals' biological age. The greater an individual's biological, or epigenetic, age, the greater their risk of disease and
earlier death.



==========================================================================
The study's cohort -- which included women who ranged in age from 23
to 45 six months after giving birth -- is not a large representative
sample of women, the authors said, and more studies are needed to better understand the long-term impact of sleep loss on new mothers, what other factors might contribute to sleep loss and whether the biological aging
effects are permanent or reversible.

Carroll and Dunkel Schetter reported last year that a mother's stress
prior to giving birth may accelerate her child's biological aging,
which is a form of "intergenerational transfer of health risk," Dunkel
Schetter said.

Co-authors of the new study included researchers from the department of psychology, the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, and
the department of human genetics and biostatistics at UCLA and from the psychology department at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Funding sources for the study included the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute
of Aging, both part of the National Institutes of Health.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_California_-_Los_Angeles. Original written by Stuart
Wolpert. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Judith E. Carroll, Kharah M. Ross, Steve Horvath, Michele Okun,
Calvin
Hobel, Kelly E. Rentscher, Mary Coussons-Read, Christine Dunkel
Schetter.

Postpartum sleep loss and accelerated epigenetic aging. Sleep
Health, 2021; 7 (3): 362 DOI: 10.1016/j.sleh.2021.02.002 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210805115519.htm

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