ArticlePloS one2016
Evidence for the Cost of Reproduction in Humans: High Lifetime Reproductive Effort Is Associated with Greater Oxidative Stress in Post-Menopausal Women.
Article in PloS one, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Are pregnancy and parity associated with telomere length? A systematic review.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2023Pooled it
- Human microphysiological systems of aging recreate the in vivo process expediting evaluation of anti-geronic strategies.Nature biomedical engineering · 2026Article
- Maternal biological aging from pregnancy through four years postpartum with disrupted recovery by subsequent pregnancy.iScience · 2026Article
- Features of Biochemical and Hematological Parameters and Chromosomal Disorders in Lymphocytes of Aging Primates of the Kurchatovsky Complex of Medical Primatology.Doklady. Biochemistry and biophysics · 2026Article
- Association of female reproductive traits with altered aging trajectories: Insights from genetic and observational analyses.Cell reports. Medicine · 2025Observational
- Plant-based bioactives and oxidative stress in reproduction: anti-inflammatory and metabolic protection mechanisms.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Review
- Minimally invasive biomarkers in human and non-human primate evolutionary biology: Tools for understanding variation and adaptation.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2022Article
- Long-term association of pregnancy and maternal brain structure: the Rotterdam Study.European journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- Effects of Temperament on the Reproduction of Beef Cattle.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Review
- Love and longevity: A Social Dependency Hypothesis.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2021Review
- Accelerated senescence as a cost of reproduction: Testing associations between oxidative stress and reproductive effort in rural and urban women.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2021Article
- Free Radical Scavenging Activity of Infusions of Different Medicinal Plants for Use in Obstetrics.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- The Cognitive, Ecological, and Developmental Origins of Self-Disturbance in Borderline Personality Disorder.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
- Oxidative stress as a hidden cost of attractiveness in postmenopausal women.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Article
- Parity predicts biological age acceleration in post-menopausal, but not pre-menopausal, women.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Multi-system physiological dysregulation and ageing in a subsistence population.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Faecal parasites increase with age but not reproductive effort in wild female chimpanzees.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Costs of reproduction and ageing in the human female.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Life history theory predicts trade-offs between reproductive effort and maternal survivorship in energy-restricted environments. However, empirical evidence for the positive association between maternal mortality and reproductive effort from energetically challenged human populations are mixed and physiological mechanisms that may underlie this association are poorly understood. We hypothesized that increases in aerobic metabolism during repeated periods of pregnancy and lactation result in increased oxidative stress that may contribute to somatic deterioration, vulnerability to illness, and accelerated aging. We therefore predicted that lifetime gravidity and parity would be related to levels of biomarkers of oxidative stress, as well as antioxidative defence enzymes in post-menopausal women. Our hypothesis was supported by positive linear associations between levels of 8-OHdG, a biomarker of DNA oxidative damage (β = 0.21, p<0.05), levels of antioxidative defence enzyme Cu-Zn SOD (β = 0.25, p<0.05), and number of lifetime pregnancies. Furthermore, independent of age and health status, post-menopausal women with higher gravidity and parity (> = 4 pregnancies per lifetime) had 20% higher levels of 8-OHdG and 60% higher levels of Cu-Zn SOD compared to women with lower gravidity and parity (<4 pregnancies per lifetime). Our results present the first evidence for oxidative stress as a possible cost of reproductive effort in humans.
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Registered trials
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