Mengling Cheng, Dalton Conley, Tom Kuipers, Chihua Li, Calen Ryan, Jazmin Taubert, Shuang Wang, Tian Wang, Jiayi Zhou, Lauren L Schmitz, Elmar W Tobi, Bas Heijmans, L H Lumey, Daniel W Belsky
UNLABELLED: To test the hypothesis that early-life adversity accelerates the pace of biological aging, we analyzed data from the Dutch Hunger Winter Families Study (DHWFS, N=951). DHWFS is a natural-experiment birth-cohort study of survivors of in-utero exposure to famine conditions caused by the German occupation of the Western Netherlands in Winter 1944-5, matched controls, and their siblings. We conducted DNA methylation analysis of blood samples collected when the survivors were aged 58 to quantify biological aging using the DunedinPACE, GrimAge, and PhenoAge epigenetic clocks...
November 4, 2023: medRxiv