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Why Is Parental Lifespan Linked to Children’s Chances of Reaching a High Age? A Transgenerational Hypothesis

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Early Life Origins of Ageing and Longevity

Part of the book series: Healthy Ageing and Longevity ((HAL,volume 9))

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Abstract

Transgenerational determinants of longevity are poorly understood. We studied four linked generations (G0, G1, G2 and G3) of the Uppsala Birth Cohort Multigeneration Study to address this issue. Mortality in G1 (N = 9,565) was followed 1961–2015 and analysed by their parents’ (G0) age-at-death using Cox regression. For an almost entirely deceased segment of G1 (n = 1,149), born 1915–1917, we compared exact age-at-death with G0 parents’ age-at-death. Finally, we explored ‘resilience’ as a potential mechanism for intergenerational transmission of longevity, using conscript information from psychological interviews of G2 and G3 men. G0 men’s and women’s ages-at-death were independently associated with G1 midlife and old age mortality. We observed an increased lifespan in all social groups. Median difference in age-at-death for sons compared to fathers was +3.9 years, and +6.9 years for daughters compared to mothers. Parents’ and maternal grandmother’s longevity were associated with resilience in subsequent generations. Resilience scores of G2 men were also associated with those of their G3 sons and with their own mortality in midlife. We conclude that chances of reaching a high age are transmitted from parents to children in a modest, but robust way. Longevity inheritance is paralleled by the inheritance of individual resilience. Individual resilience, we propose, develops in the first part of life as a response to adversity and early experience in general. This transgenerational pathway is distinct from social class trajectories. A theory of longevity inheritance should bring together previous thinking around general susceptibility, frailty and resilience with new insights from epigenetics and social epidemiology.

This chapter is an edited version of a paper, previously published in SSM Population Health 2018; 4:45–54.

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council.

This chapter is a re-use of the authors’ article in SSM Population Health, published by Elsevier.

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Acknowledgements

Kristiina Rajaleid and Stefan Fors gave valuable comments. Klara Abrahamsson helped us to collect birth and death data for generation 0.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CHESS, Centre for Health Equity Studies, Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    Denny Vågerö, Vanda Aronsson & Bitte Modin

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  1. Denny Vågerö
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  2. Vanda Aronsson
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  3. Bitte Modin
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Correspondence to Denny Vågerö .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Epigenetics, Institute of Gerontology, Kiev, Ukraine

    Alexander Vaiserman

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was granted by Stockholm Regional Ethics Board (2015/904-31/5; 2016/933-32).

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Vågerö, D., Aronsson, V., Modin, B. (2019). Why Is Parental Lifespan Linked to Children’s Chances of Reaching a High Age? A Transgenerational Hypothesis. In: Vaiserman, A. (eds) Early Life Origins of Ageing and Longevity. Healthy Ageing and Longevity, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24958-8_13

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