ArticleScientific reports2020
Frailty: A cost incurred by reproduction?
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- The relationship between parity and late-life frailty: companion dogs as a preclinical model for evaluating factors that aggravate or mitigate the frailty cost of reproduction.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2026Article
- Associations between reproductive factors and frailty in middle-aged and older women: evidence from the China health and retirement longitudinal study.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
- Applying a life course approach to elucidate the biology of sex differences in frailty: early-life gonadectomy diminishes late-life robustness in male and female dogs in the Exceptional Aging in Rottweilers Study.Biology of sex differences · 2025Article
- The association between reproductive factors and frailty risk: a population-based analysis from the UK biobank.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Reproductive factors and risk of physical frailty among Chinese women living in Singapore.The journal of nutrition, health & aging · 2024Article
- Article
- Impact of fertility on the longevity of older rural Chinese women: an analysis of a longitudinal survey.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Female Fertility Has a Negative Relationship With Longevity in Chinese Oldest-Old Population: A Cross-Sectional Study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Evolutionary theories of senescence, such as the 'disposable soma' theory, propose that natural selection trades late survival for early fecundity. 'Frailty', a multidimensional measure of health status, may help to better define the long-term consequences of reproduction. We examined the relationship between parity and later life frailty (as measured by the Frailty Index) in a sample of 3,534 adults aged 65 years and older who participated in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. We found that the most parous adults were the most frail and that the parity-frailty relationship was similar for both sexes. Whilst this study provided some evidence for a 'parity-frailty trade-off', there was little support for our hypothesis that the physiological costs of childbearing influence later life frailty. Rather, behavioural and social factors associated with rearing many children may have contributed to the development of frailty in both sexes.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.