Dan T.A. Eisenberg, Nanette R. Lee, Peter H. Rej, M. Geoffrey Hayes, Christopher W. Kuzawa
Telomere length (TL) declines with age in most human tissues, and shorter TL appears to accelerate senescence. By contrast, men’s sperm TL is positively correlated with age. Correspondingly, in humans, older paternal age at conception (PAC) predicts longer offspring TL. We have hypothesized that this PAC effect could persist across multiple generations, and thereby contribute to a transgenerational genetic plasticity that increases expenditures on somatic maintenance as the average age at reproduction is delayed within a lineage. Here, we examine TL data from 3282 humans together with PAC data across four generations. In this sample, the PAC effect is detectable in children and grandchildren. The PAC effect is transmitted through the matriline and patriline with similar strength and is characterized by a generational decay. PACs of more distant male ancestors were not significant predictors, although statistical power was limited in these analyses. Sensitivity analyses suggest that the PAC effect is linear, not moderated by offspring age, or maternal age, and is robust to controls for income, urbanicity and ancestry. These findings show that TL reflects the age at the reproduction of recent male matrilineal and patrilineal ancestors, with an effect that decays across generations. © 2019 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Campus Box 353100, Seattle, 98195, WA, United States; Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, University of Washington, Campus Box 353100, Seattle, 98195, WA, United States; USC-Office of Population Studies Foundation, Inc., University of San Carlos, Cebu City, Philippines; Department of Anthropology, Sociology and History, University of San Carlos, Cebu City, Philippines; Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Molecular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States; Center for Genetic Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States; Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States; Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States
