Folic Acid Supplementation during Pregnancy and Its Association with Telomere Length in Children at Four Years: Results from the INMA Birth Cohort Study
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Date
2023-10-09Author
Petermann Rocha, Fanny
Valera Gran, Desirée
Prieto Botella, Daniel
Martens, Dries S
González Palacios, Sandra
Riaño Galán, Isolina
Murcia, Mario
Irizar Loibide, Amaia
Julvez, Jordi
Santa Marina, Loreto
Tardón, Adonina
Sunyer, Jordi
Vioque, Jesús
Nawrot, Tim
Navarrete Muñoz, Eva María
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Nutrients 15(19) : (2023) // Article ID 4303
Abstract
This study examined the association between folic acid supplements (FAs) during different periods of pregnancy and offspring telomere length (TL) at age four in 666 children from the INMA study. FAs were self-reported using food-structured questionnaires during three periods of pregnancy (the first three months of pregnancy, from month fourth onward, and the whole pregnancy). For each period, the average daily dosage of FAs was categorised into (i) <400 μg/d, (ii) ≥400 to 999 μg/d, (iii) ≥1000 to 4999 μg/d, and (iv) ≥5000 μg/d. Leucocyte TL at age four was measured using quantitative PCR methods. Multiple robust linear log-level regression models were used to report the % difference among FA categories. During the first period, and compared with children whose mothers were classified in the reference group (<400 μg/d), children whose mothers took higher dosages of FAs showed shorter TL at age four (≥5000 μg/d). When the first and the second periods were mutually adjusted, children whose mothers self-reported ≥5000 μg/d during the first period of pregnancy had a statistically significant shorter TL than their counterparts (% difference: −7.28% [95% CI: −14.42 to −0.13]). Similar trends were observed for the whole period of pregnancy. When the analysis was stratified by sex, the association was more evident in boys (% difference: −13.5% [95% CI: −23.0 to −4.04]), whereas no association was observed in girls. This study suggests that high dosages of FAs in the first pregnancy period may be associated with a shorter TL in children at age four, particularly among boys. Further studies should confirm these results.
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).