Collaborative ECHO research led by Christine Ladd-Acosta, PhD and Heather Volk, PhD, MPH, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, investigates the association between accelerated biological age at birth and children’s health outcomes. This research, titled “Accelerated epigenetic age at birth and child emotional and behavioral development in early childhood: A meta-analysis of four prospective cohort studies in ECHO,” is published in Epigenetics.
Previous studies have shown a potential link between early identification and intervention in the development of emotional and behavioral health challenges in children and better long-term health outcomes. Recently, researchers have begun looking at how epigenetic factors affect children’s biological age and health outcomes.
A molecular process known as DNA methylation, or DNAm, adds a tag to DNA to control gene expression. Researchers measure DNAm to estimate a person’s biological age and compare it with their chronological age to better understand the factors that may influence their long-term health outcomes. In this study, ECHO researchers looked at the link between biological age at birth, the time between conception and birth (chronological gestational age), and emotional and behavioral health outcomes in children.
The study included 592 children at four ECHO research sites in the United States. Researchers calculated each child’s biological age by analyzing DNA samples collected at birth, and they compared this age to the child’s chronological gestational age. They then tested whether newborns who showed increased biological age relative to their chronological age (“accelerated aging”) were more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems in early childhood.
The study indicates that differences between biological age at birth and chronological gestational age are not linked to emotional and behavioral problems in childhood. This study also did not find any difference between boys and girls in terms of the effect of “accelerated” biological age on behavioral and emotional outcomes.
“This study suggests that biological age has no impact on child emotional and behavioral problems in early childhood,” Dr. Ladd-Acosta said. “These results highlight that future research is needed to look into how other biological factors at birth may influence neurodevelopmental health outcomes in early childhood.”
Future studies may use larger sample sizes to replicate this study and further confirm the findings. The relatively small sample size of this study may have made it difficult to observe differences in behavioral or emotional outcomes based on child sex. Future research with larger samples could help investigate potential differences in the results between boys and girls.