Fetuses that have been exposed to smoking during the mother's pregnancy and people who smoked throughout childhood can age biologically faster than in relation to their chronological age — that is, the age since birth. The discovery comes from new research published this Friday (3) in the scientific journal Science Advances.
O study quantified the extent to which the early exposure to tobacco It biologically ages a person and increases the predisposition to conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, among others. For this, more than 276 thousand participants were analyzed and the relationships between intrauterine exposure to tobacco smoke, childhood smoking and accelerated biological aging were evaluated.
A biological age refers to the state of functionality and conservation of the organism and is influenced by lifestyle, environment and other external factors. Therefore, often, it is not aligned with chronological age which refers to the years that pass since a person's birth.
Current research has found that exposure to tobacco in childhood, including during pregnancy, can accelerate biological age beyond chronological age, increasing the risk of lung disease, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
How was the study carried out?
To carry out the study, researchers evaluated 276,259 participants from Biobank, a database from the United Kingdom. They were divided into several groups delineated by intrauterine exposure to tobacco and childhood smoking (or lack thereof).
The researchers tested blood samples from these participants using two previously established metrics, called KDM-BA and PhenoAge, which comprise a variety of biomarkers indicative of biological age. They also examined the length of the participants' telomeres — these are the ends of the cell's DNA chromosomes and function as a “biological clock”, shortening as biological aging occurs.
According to the study, people who were exposed to tobacco in the womb were 0.26 KDM-BA years and 0.49 PhenoAge years older than their chronological age. Additionally, there was an average decrease of 5.34% in the length of their telomeres.
Meanwhile, people who smoked as children were 0.88 KDM-BA years and 2.51 PhenoAge years older than their chronological age. They also showed a decrease in telomere length of 10.53% on average.
Furthermore, people who were exposed to tobacco in the womb and who also smoked during childhood were 1.13 KDM-BA years and 2.89 PhenoAge years older than their chronological age.
“This result emphasized the important public benefits of early smoking cessation, regardless of genetic origin, in resisting biological aging and preventing age-related diseases,” the study authors wrote.
Source: CNN Brasil
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