Doctoral Dissertation Research: The effect of lifetime investment in reproduction and physical activity on women's rates of senescence

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What drives variation in how fast women will age? This doctoral dissertation project is a comparative study of rural and urban women to investigate whether lifetime reproductive behaviors and physical activity patterns have long-lasting impact on biological aging. The investigators will examine the physiological mechanisms associated with reproductive and physical behaviors that energetically tax women's bodies across their lives. Findings from the project will contribute to our understanding of aging at the cellular level and in the context of human life history. The project will promote international collaboration, support the acquisition of new research skills for students participating in fieldwork and lab activities, and produce data that may inform clinical and policy research on women's health and aging. This study examines whether physiological tradeoffs impact rates of senescence in contexts where women have to allocate limited resources to competing energetic demands across the life course. It uses a comparative design with two populations - rural and urban women - who vary in lifetime reproductive investments and contrast in their physical activity levels. The researchers predict that women's levels of lifetime reproductive investment will be directly associated with their levels of oxidative stress, a marker of cellular damage resulting from aerobic metabolism and a potential indicator of physiological aging. They further predict that rural women, who assume vigorous physical activity over their lifetime, will demonstrate greater rates of physiological senescence relative to urban women - over and above the aging effects of reproduction. This research will be among the first of its kind to test the association between investments over the life course and variation in rates of biological aging while evaluating a mechanistic explanation for variation in rates of senescence over the lifespan.