Prenatal second-hand smoke exposure and newborn telomere length.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Cigarette smoking is associated with shorter telomere lengths in adults, but evidence on the effect of prenatal tobacco exposure is limited. We aimed to investigate the association between prenatal second-hand smoke exposure and newborn telomere length. METHODS: We recruited 762 mother-newborn pairs from Wuhan Children's Hospital (Wuhan Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital) between November 2013 and March 2015. Information on second-hand smoke exposure was obtained via questionnaires. Relative telomere length was measured in DNA extracted from umbilical cord blood. We used linear regression to assess the associations between prenatal second-hand smoke exposure and newborn telomere length. RESULTS: In the fully adjusted model, prenatal second-hand smoke exposure was associated with 9.7% shorter newborn telomere length (percent difference -9.7%; 95% confidence interval (CI) -15.0, -4.0). The estimate for boys was lower (percent difference -10.9%; 95% CI -18.6, -2.5) than that for girls (percent difference -8.5%; 95% CI -15.8, -0.5), but the interaction term between newborn sex and prenatal second-hand smoke was not significant (P = 0.751). CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that prenatal second-hand smoke exposure may be a preventable risk factor for accelerated biological aging in the intrauterine stage, and further suggested possible sex differences in the susceptibility to prenatal second-hand smoke.