ArticleBMC pregnancy and childbirth2021
Maternal overweight but not paternal overweight before pregnancy is associated with shorter newborn telomere length: evidence from Guangxi Zhuang birth cohort in China.
Article in BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Paternal preconception modifiable risk factors for adverse pregnancy and offspring outcomes: a review of contemporary evidence from observational studies.BMC public health · 2023Pooled it
- TelOMpy enables single-molecule resolution of telomere length from optical genome mapping data.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Correlation of telomere length between full and preterm neonates and their mothers.Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2025Article
- Maternal Lifestyle During Pregnancy and Its Influence on Offspring's Telomere Length.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- The impact of prepregnancy overweight and obesity on newborn glucose-lipid metabolism: An observational study.Medicine · 2025Observational
- Associations of essential trace metals with telomere length in general population: a cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Robust evidence supports a causal link between higher birthweight and longer telomere length: a mendelian randomization study.Frontiers in genetics · 2024Article
- Impact of maternal cardiometabolic status after bariatric surgery on the association between telomere length and adiposity in offspring.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Longitudinal Association of Telomere Dynamics with Obesity and Metabolic Disorders in Young Children.Nutrients · 2022Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundTelomere length (TL) is variable at birth and is inversely associated with body mass index (BMI) in adulthood. A growing number of evidences suggested that a higher maternal pre-pregnancy BMI results in adverse offspring health outcomes, especially shorter newborn TL. However, a newborn's genetic endowment is equally derived from both parents, the association between parental pre-pregnancy BMI and newborn TL has been rarely discussed. We aimed to determine the association between parental pre-pregnancy BMI and newborn TL.
methodsA total of 1082 parent-newborn pairs were recruited from the Guangxi Zhuang Birth Cohort (GZBC). TL in cord blood was measured using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and expressed as the ratio of telomere copy number to single-copy gene number (T/S). A series of linear regressions were performed to assess the associations between parental pre-pregnancy BMI and newborn TL.
resultsMothers who were overweight before pregnancy had significantly shorter cord blood telomere length in their newborns than those who were normal weight before pregnancy [percentage change: - 7.96% (95% CI: - 14.49 to - 0.69%; P = 0.032)]. Further analysis of the combined effects of parental weight status on newborn TL showed that TL was significantly shortened among newborns whose mothers were overweight and fathers were of healthy weight when compared with those whose mothers and fathers were both of normal weight [percentage change: - 8.38% (95% CI: - 15.47 to - 0.92%; P = 0.028)]. Subgroup analysis indicated these effects were more pronounced among male newborns and those whose paternal age < 31 years or maternal age ≥ 28 years at delivery.
conclusionsMaternal pre-pregnancy overweight, but not paternal pre-pregnancy overweight is associated with shorter newborn TL. Weight control in reproductive women and effective healthy weight management before pregnancy may be of particular benefit for improving longevity and life quality of offspring.
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