Calen P. Ryan 🌊

Trying to find evolution schemes depicting women. If you have one or wish to contribute, post here! #sciart #evolution (image: Eduardo Saiz)

@GJasienska Birds will be tipsy!

Nothing like children and garden to remind us about passing time. I planted a small stick and now it is a great tree full of fruit. Sorbus aucuparia. Birds will be happy.

New work looking at how epigenetic clocks and cell composition derived from Illumina EPICv1 and v2 compare, led by our outstanding colleagues @UBC @koborlab Always thrilled to publish with such a great team!

My latest story for @AARP is live! As a bonus, I got to hang out with my editor IRL at this past weekend's @AHCJ conference in NYC. TY @mkaeberlein @CalenRyan @StevenAustad for your research & insight. aarp.org/health/healthy… #aging #longevity #healthwriting #freelance

🧬What is the link between telomeres and aging, and why does caloric restriction appear to influence them? A new study sheds some light. lifespan.io/news/exploring… @whastings2012 @Wolf_SarahE @CalenRyan @RacetteSusan @DrLeanneRedman @Danbelsky #TelomereAttrition #CALERIE #CR

@natalie_matosin @KieranOD_PhD Thank you! Funny though I've seen responses to our work from non-scientists at both extremes. 1. "Obviously unnecessary study! Of course pregnancy and parenthood ages us!" 2. "Obviously wrong. My aunt had 8 kids and lived to 100". Exactly why we need the science!

This was not planned but what timing!?! Two studies on pregnancy and biological aging in as many weeks! In this study @CalenRyan and colleagues report that an increasing number of pregnancies associates with biological aging| PNAS pnas.org/doi/abs/10.107…

@KieranOD_PhD @Danbelsky @koborlab Thanks @KieranOD_PhD! Really fascinating and I think complementary findings to your work!

So many interesting directions to follow up on these findings! Congratulations to @CalenRyan @Danbelsky @koborlab and everyone involved!

@JKresovich @PNASNews @koborlab @Danbelsky @ChrisKuzawa Thanks @JKresovich! Yes! We still need to account for studies showing faster bio aging with parity like our NHANES study, and some of the epi data linking parity to CVD, kidney disease, all-cause mortality (at the high end of parity after the j-shaped portion). Much to learn!

@CalenRyan @PNASNews @koborlab @Danbelsky @ChrisKuzawa Congrats Calen!!! We didn’t see too much going on in the Sister Study (mostly older women at enrollment and only cross-sectionals), so I wonder if the aging costs of pregnancy wash out over time. You did a fantastic job with this—beautiful work!

Our publication showing that pregnancy is associated with faster epigenetic aging is out now in @PNASNews! pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn… @koborlab @Danbelsky @ChrisKuzawa A thread about the paper below 👇

Stimulating questions and great discussion on our recent paper with @eabrown18 - read more about it in her article with @NatGeo!

More broadly, these kinds of studies are highlighting how research in biological aging has often overlooked women and women’s health: we really think more carefully about pregnancy, menstruation, and menopause, when building, testing, and validating measures of biological aging.

The effects we see are small, and we still don’t know the long-term implications. But this kind of research may one day help us identify who is at the greatest risk and devise ways to support them to minimize any long-term costs of reproduction.

We measured biological aging using 6 epigenetic clocks, a family of revolutionary tools for studying aging and predicting health and longevity. You can read more about them in my not too out-of-date review article. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.100…