Longitudinal trajectories, correlations and mortality associations of nine biological ages across 20-years follow-up.

Li X, Ploner A, Wang Y, Magnusson PK, Reynolds C, Finkel D, Pedersen NL, Jylhävä J, Hägg S

Elife 9 (-) - [2020-02-11; online 2020-02-11]

Biological age measurements (BAs) assess aging-related physiological change and predict health risks among individuals of the same chronological age (CA). Multiple BAs have been proposed and are well studied individually but not jointly. We included 845 individuals and 3973 repeated measurements from a Swedish population-based cohort and examined longitudinal trajectories, correlations, and mortality associations of nine BAs across 20 years follow-up. We found the longitudinal growth of functional BAs accelerated around age 70; average levels of BA curves differed by sex across the age span (50-90 years). All BAs were correlated to varying degrees; correlations were mostly explained by CA. Individually, all BAs except for telomere length were associated with mortality risk independently of CA. The largest effects were seen for methylation age estimators (GrimAge) and the frailty index (FI). In joint models, two methylation age estimators (Horvath and GrimAge) and FI remained predictive, suggesting they are complementary in predicting mortality.

Bioinformatics Support for Computational Resources [Service]

NGI Uppsala (SNP&SEQ Technology Platform) [Service]

National Genomics Infrastructure [Service]

PubMed 32041686

DOI 10.7554/eLife.51507

Crossref 10.7554/eLife.51507

pii: 51507
pmc: PMC7012595