ArticleHuman molecular genetics2016
Prenatal and early life influences on epigenetic age in children: a study of mother-offspring pairs from two cohort studies.
Article in Human molecular genetics, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 128 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
128 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 253 citations in OpenAlex.
- Chemical and climatic environmental exposures and epigenetic aging: A systematic review.Environmental research · 2025Pooled it
- Using Epigenetic Clocks to Characterize Biological Aging in Studies of Children and Childhood Exposures: a Systematic Review.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2023Pooled it
- Epigenome-wide meta-analysis of blood DNA methylation in newborns and children identifies numerous loci related to gestational age.Genome medicine · 2020Pooled it
- Associations between body size, nutrition and socioeconomic position in early life and the epigenome: A systematic review.PloS one · 2018Pooled it
- Breastfeeding effects on DNA methylation in the offspring: A systematic literature review.PloS one · 2017Pooled it
- Effects of Vitamin D3 Supplementation on Epigenetic Aging in Overweight and Obese African Americans With Suboptimal Vitamin D Status: A Randomized Clinical Trial.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2019Trial
- Psychosocial adversity and socioeconomic position during childhood and epigenetic age: analysis of two prospective cohort studies.Human molecular genetics · 2018Trial
- DNA methylome analysis identifies accelerated epigenetic ageing associated with postmenopausal breast cancer susceptibility.European journal of cancer (Oxford, England : 1990) · 2017Trial
- Differential methylation at novel putative imprinting control regions on chromosome 20 associated with childhood obesity.Epigenetics · 2026Article
- Placental Pathophysiology and Developmental Programming of Adult Cardiometabolic Risk: A Narrative Review of Pregnancy Exposures.Pathophysiology : the official journal of the International Society for Pathophysiology · 2026Review
- An epigenetic clock for chronological age estimation in East Asian populations.NAR genomics and bioinformatics · 2026Article
- The association of epigenetic age acceleration with internal smoking dose, risk of lung cancer, and all-cause mortality in cigarette smokers: the Multiethnic Cohort study.Clinical epigenetics · 2026Article
- The joint effects of exposure to prenatal pesticides and psychosocial factors on epigenetic age acceleration in the first 5 years of life in a South African birth cohort.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Longitudinal changes in epigenetic age acceleration prior to type 1 diabetes onset in the Diabetes Autoimmunity Study in the Young (DAISY).BMJ open diabetes research & care · 2026Article
- The association of sleep health with epigenetic aging in early adolescence: exploratory insights from the Health Outcomes and Measures of the Environment study.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2026Article
- Designing Epigenetic Clocks for Wildlife Research.Molecular ecology resources · 2025Review
- Estimating Polar Bear (Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Genetic and environmental contributions to epigenetic aging across adolescence and young adulthood.Clinical epigenetics · 2025Article
- DNA methylation-based age prediction and sex-specific epigenetic aging in a lizard with female-biased longevity.Science advances · 2025Article
- Atrial myocyte senescence as a driver of atrial fibrillation: mechanisms and therapeutic implications.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2025Review
68 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
18 authors at 8 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
DNA methylation-based biomarkers of aging are highly correlated with actual age. Departures of methylation-estimated age from actual age can be used to define epigenetic measures of child development or age acceleration (AA) in adults. Very little is known about genetic or environmental determinants of these epigenetic measures of aging. We obtained DNA methylation profiles using Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChips across five time-points in 1018 mother-child pairs from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Using the Horvath age estimation method, we calculated epigenetic age for these samples. AA was defined as the residuals from regressing epigenetic age on actual age. AA was tested for associations with cross-sectional clinical variables in children. We identified associations between AA and sex, birth weight, birth by caesarean section and several maternal characteristics in pregnancy, namely smoking, weight, BMI, selenium and cholesterol level. Offspring of non-drinkers had higher AA on average but this difference appeared to resolve during childhood. The associations between sex, birth weight and AA found in ARIES were replicated in an independent cohort (GOYA). In children, epigenetic AA measures are associated with several clinically relevant variables, and early life exposures appear to be associated with changes in AA during adolescence. Further research into epigenetic aging, including the use of causal inference methods, is required to better our understanding of aging.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.