Having sons linked to faster cognitive decline in parents

There is a complicated relationship between being a parent and our health. It seems that not only the number of children, but also the composition of offspring sex may have effect on how healthy an older parent remains. For example, previous studies found that parents of sons have a higher risk of death. Both social and biological pathways may explain such effects on human health. For example, having daughters might benefit health through better management of chronic diseases as they are more likely to provide informal caregiving than sons. Daughters may provide more emotional support than sons to both parents and might reduce parents’ depressive symptoms. On the other hand, parents of sons are less likely to divorce, and being married has been linked to better cognitive functioning in later life. 

The present study aimed to investigate the association of having sons with future development of cognitive function. In the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally-representative, population-based sample of middle-aged and older adults in the United States, the authors found that that parents with at least one son had a faster rate of cognitive decline. This difference was modest compared to the overall cognitive decline over time, but persisted when accounting for sociodemographic and health factors. The results also showed that cognitive decline was faster among parents of multiple sons, compared to parents with only daughters. Having sons was not related to the level of baseline cognition. There was a similar relationships between having sons with cognition for mothers and fathers, though the strength of the relationship was more modest compared to the full sample.

Katrin Wolfová, the first author of the study, who conducted this research at Columbia University in New York City as a Fulbright fellow in the group of dr. Sarah Tom, says that her study challenges previously published research that points out better health of mothers that have sons, relative to daughters. Although the specific mechanisms linking this relationship remain to be elucidated, the results suggest that the pathways are rather of a social than biological character, as there are similar trends in mothers as well as fathers.  

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Vytvořeno: 21. 10. 2022 / Upraveno: 21. 10. 2022 / Responsible person: MUDr. Pavla Čermáková, Ph.D.