Solar activity during gestation does not affect human lifespan: evidence from national data

Helle, Samuli

doi:10.1007/s10522-009-9214-6

Research Article
Published: 08 February 2009

Solar activity during gestation does not affect human lifespan: evidence from national data

Samuli Helle¹

Biogerontology volume 10, Article number: 671 (2009) Cite this article

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Abstract

Human lifespan has been reported to relate to solar activity during prenatal development. The likely key mechanism behind this association is increased mutagenic ultraviolet (UVB) radiation during high solar activity that damages DNA. Here, the aim was to replicate the findings of those previous few studies that have suggested a reduced lifespan of individuals born during the years of high solar activity, measured as the sunspot numbers. We used data on annual cohort life expectancy at birth of both women and men born between 1751 and 1915, obtained from ten nations located mainly in Europe. These data, however, provided no evidence that human life expectancy at birth was related to solar activity during gestation among the countries studied.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Academy of Finland (grant no. 207270).

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Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, 20014, Turku, Finland
Samuli Helle

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Samuli Helle
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Correspondence to Samuli Helle.

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Helle, S. Solar activity during gestation does not affect human lifespan: evidence from national data. Biogerontology 10, 671 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-009-9214-6

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Received: 29 October 2008
Accepted: 22 January 2009
Published: 08 February 2009
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-009-9214-6

Keywords

Sunspots
Ageing
Prenatal programming
The high initial damage load hypothesis