Quantification of biological aging in young adults.

Abstract

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.

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Citation

Published Version (Please cite this version)

10.1073/pnas.1506264112

Publication Info

Belsky, Daniel W, Avshalom Caspi, Renate Houts, Harvey J Cohen, David L Corcoran, Andrea Danese, HonaLee Harrington, Salomon Israel, et al. (2015). Quantification of biological aging in young adults. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 112(30). pp. E4104–E4110. 10.1073/pnas.1506264112 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/10319.

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Scholars@Duke

Caspi

Avshalom Caspi

Edward M. Arnett Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience

Caspi’s research is concerned with three questions: (1) How do childhood experiences shape aging and the course of health inequalities across the life span?  (2) How do genetic differences between people shape the way they respond to their environments? (3) How do mental health problems unfold across and shape the life course? 

Cohen

Harvey Jay Cohen

Walter Kempner Distinguished Professor of Medicine, in the School of Medicine

Dr. Cohen's research program includes clinical research relating to aspects of the pathways to functional decline and reilience with aging, geriatric assessment, and cancer and anemia in the elderly.

Pathways to functional decline are being explored through the NIA funded Claude Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, and includes studies of the contributions of age related physiologic change, in particular changes in inflammatory parameters, comorbid diseases and conditions, environment, genetics, and the interactionas among them. Data are derived from several current studies as well as previously collected data sets from the Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (EPESE), National Long Term Care Survey, and the Chinese Longevity Study (with Dr. Zeng Yi). Previous work has demonstrated the important contributions of age related inflammation and coagulation activation to functional status. He is Co-PI of the Pepper Center Physical Performance Across the LifeSpan (PALS) study, which is a longitudinal cohort study of community dwelling adults from age 30-90+and includes functional measures and biomarkers on inflammation and metabolism.
 
Geriatric assessment approaches have been studied in a number of randomized and controlled studies and work is now concentrating on the application of Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment tools to the evaluation and treatment of elderly patients with cancer. This is an extension and continuation of a long standing interest in geriatric oncology. Previous studies have elucidated age-related patterns of disease presentation, treatment approaches, clinical trials, survivorship, quality of life, impact of comrobidities and functional outcomes. Dr. Cohen was co-chair, and now member of the Cancer in the Older Adult Committee of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology (ALLIANCE). A number of active studies and ongoing data bases aree being utilized to address these questions.


Anemia in the older adult is being addressed through an NIA funded U01 consortium (Dr. Cohen Co-PI). the current main study is an observational study followed by a pragmatic treatment trial for anemia in older adults with CHF, in collaboration with the Cardiovascular Research Network (CVRN) of the Health services research network (HSRN) 

Sugden

Karen Sugden

Research Project Manager
Yashin

Anatoli I. Yashin

Research Professor in the Social Science Research Institute
Moffitt

Terrie E. Moffitt

Nannerl O. Keohane University Distinguished Professor

Terrie E. Moffitt, Ph.D., is the Nannerl O. Keohane University Professor of Psychology at Duke University, and Professor of Social Development at King’s College London. Her expertise is in the areas of longitudinal methods, developmental theory, mental disorders and antisocial behaviors, neuropsychology, and genomics in behavioral science. She is currently uncovering the consequences of a lifetime of mental and behavioral disorder on processes of aging. She is the Associate Director of the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, which follows a 1972 birth cohort in New Zealand. She also co-founded the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study (E-Risk), which follows a 1994 birth cohort in the UK. Dr. Moffitt also is a licensed clinical psychologist, with specialization in neuropsychological assessment. She collaborates with criminologists, economists, geneticists, epidemiologists, sociologists, demographers, gerontologists, statisticians, neuroscientists, medical scientists, opthalmologists, and dentists. Dr. Moffitt is a fellow of the National Academy of Medicine and  the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , as well as the British Academy, Academy of Medical Sciences (UK), Academia Europa, Association of Psychological Science, and the American Society of Criminology. She holds honorary doctorates from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and Universitat Basel, Switzerland. For her research, Dr. Moffitt has received both the American Psychological Association's Early Career Contribution Award and Distinguished Career Award. Dr. Moffitt was also awarded a Royal Society-Wolfson Merit Award, the Klaus-Grawe Prize, and was a recipient of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology, NARSAD Ruane Prize, the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize, and in 2022 the Grawemeyer Prize. Her service includes serving as chair of the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Science at NASEM, Chair of the NIA Data Monitoring Committee for the Health and Retirement Study, and Chair of the Jury for the Klaus J. Jacobs Prize in Switzerland. Dr. Moffitt attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for her undergraduate degree in psychology. She continued her training in psychology at the University of Southern California, receiving an M.A. in experimental animal behavior, and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. She also completed postdoctoral training in geriatrics and neuropsychology at the University of California Los Angeles Neuropsychiatric Institute. In her spare time, she works on her poison-ivy farm in North Carolina.


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