Forget Diet And Exercise, Apparently Pregnancy Is The Key To Feeling Youthful

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When you think of pregnancy, you think of a lot of things. Namely bloating, nausea, weight and hormone fluctuation, backaches, breakouts, and a whole slew of other wonderful symptoms.  What you probably don’t think of, however, is its effect on women’s overall, long-term health and aging. I know I certainly never have, and now that I currently find myself with child, I’m starting to feel better about the rapid changes happening to my life/body thanks to the findings of this recent Israeli study.

According to an article published in Fertility and Sterility, medical researchers at Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem studied the effect of liver transplants in pregnant and non-pregnant mice (stay with me, I promise this makes sense). The study found that in a whopping 96% of the older, pregnant rodents, the liver had regenerated within two days. This was compared with 82% of young, non-pregnant nice and 46% of older, non-pregnant mice as well.

So, what does that mean for us non-mice, exactly? Well the study also found that the pregnancy protected the mice from tissue damage around the heart, which is part of the human aging process. Pregnant mothers got an injection of a type of “youth serum”, if you will, from the babies they were carrying.

“As we age, it is more difficult for our tissue to regenerate itself,” the study found. “Because pregnancy is a unique biological model of a partially shared blood system, we have speculated that pregnancy would have a rejuvenating effect on the mother.”

The only downside? According to the research, the “rejuvenation” is temporary and only lasts about two months post-delivery. But you know what? That’s better than nothing, and I’m assuming that will be the time I will want to feel “youthful” and “healthy” the most. So… I’ll take it. Hopefully being a non-mouse will still work in my favor.

(Photo: Shutterstock)

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