Browsing by Subject "biological aging"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Quantification of biological aging in young adults.
    (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2015-07-28) Belsky, Daniel W; Caspi, Avshalom; Houts, Renate; Cohen, Harvey J; Corcoran, David L; Danese, Andrea; Harrington, HonaLee; Israel, Salomon; Levine, Morgan E; Schaefer, Jonathan D; Sugden, Karen; Williams, Ben; Yashin, Anatoli I; Poulton, Richie; Moffitt, Terrie E
    Antiaging therapies show promise in model organism research. Translation to humans is needed to address the challenges of an aging global population. Interventions to slow human aging will need to be applied to still-young individuals. However, most human aging research examines older adults, many with chronic disease. As a result, little is known about aging in young humans. We studied aging in 954 young humans, the Dunedin Study birth cohort, tracking multiple biomarkers across three time points spanning their third and fourth decades of life. We developed and validated two methods by which aging can be measured in young adults, one cross-sectional and one longitudinal. Our longitudinal measure allows quantification of the pace of coordinated physiological deterioration across multiple organ systems (e.g., pulmonary, periodontal, cardiovascular, renal, hepatic, and immune function). We applied these methods to assess biological aging in young humans who had not yet developed age-related diseases. Young individuals of the same chronological age varied in their "biological aging" (declining integrity of multiple organ systems). Already, before midlife, individuals who were aging more rapidly were less physically able, showed cognitive decline and brain aging, self-reported worse health, and looked older. Measured biological aging in young adults can be used to identify causes of aging and evaluate rejuvenation therapies.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Quantification of the pace of biological aging in humans through a blood test, the DunedinPoAm DNA methylation algorithm.
    (eLife, 2020-05-05) Belsky, Daniel W; Caspi, Avshalom; Arseneault, Louise; Baccarelli, Andrea; Corcoran, David L; Gao, Xu; Hannon, Eiliss; Harrington, Hona Lee; Rasmussen, Line Jh; Houts, Renate; Huffman, Kim; Kraus, William E; Kwon, Dayoon; Mill, Jonathan; Pieper, Carl F; Prinz, Joseph A; Poulton, Richie; Schwartz, Joel; Sugden, Karen; Vokonas, Pantel; Williams, Benjamin S; Moffitt, Terrie E
    Biological aging is the gradual, progressive decline in system integrity that occurs with advancing chronological age, causing morbidity and disability. Measurements of the pace of aging are needed as surrogate endpoints in trials of therapies designed to prevent disease by slowing biological aging. We report a blood-DNA-methylation measure that is sensitive to variation in pace of biological aging among individuals born the same year. We first modeled change-over-time in 18 biomarkers tracking organ-system integrity across 12 years of follow-up in n = 954 members of the Dunedin Study born in 1972-1973. Rates of change in each biomarker over ages 26-38 years were composited to form a measure of aging-related decline, termed Pace-of-Aging. Elastic-net regression was used to develop a DNA-methylation predictor of Pace-of-Aging, called DunedinPoAm for Dunedin(P)ace(o)f(A)ging(m)ethylation. Validation analysis in cohort studies and the CALERIE trial provide proof-of-principle for DunedinPoAm as a single-time-point measure of a person's pace of biological aging.