The Journals of Gerontology: Series A

ObjectivesThis review aims to provide a comprehensive examination of biomarkers and interdisciplinary variables related to aging. MethodsThis scoping review included studies which involved adult participants, and which reported on the relationship between any biomarker or biological age with chronological age. ResultsAfter screening, 447 articles met the selection criteria. Results were categorized into 10 distinct categories through an iterative process. ConclusionsThis review contributes in...

IntroductionThe disproportionate increase in lifespan compared to health span over the past decades results in a growing proportion of life marked by diseases, even if incidence rates are falling in some cases. However, not everyone ages at the same pace and some people remain in good health and preserve physical and cognitive function into old age. To quantify inter-individual differences in the biological aging process, numerous indicators of biological age have been developed. While these mar...

BackgroundFrailty is a geriatric syndrome characterized by chronic inflammation and metabolic insufficiency that creates vulnerability to poor outcomes with aging. We hypothesize that geroscience interventions, which target mechanisms of aging, could ameliorate frailty. Metabolites such as ketone bodies are candidate geroscience interventions, having pleiotropic effects on inflammo-metabolic aging mechanisms. Ketone esters (KEs) induce ketosis without dietary changes, but KEs have not been studi...

ObjectivesTo quantify the association of social capital, defined as social relationships and networks, with cognitive health, oral inflammation, and epigenetic aging. MethodsWe used data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) (n=1,479; ages 45-85 years), categorizing social capital as structural and cognitive capital. Oral inflammation was determined as the presence of gum bleeding. Epigenetic aging was computed as the difference between chronological age and DNA methylation age. ...

ImportanceThe United States has the largest gap between lifespan and healthspan, highlighting a need to understand how some older adults maintain good health into advanced age. ObjectiveTo describe life expectancy and leading causes of death among US "superagers," defined as adults aged 80 years and older who report good or excellent health. Design, Setting, and ParticipantsCross-sectional study of adults aged 80-98 years using 1986-1995 National Health Interview Survey data linked to the Nati...

AbstractsO_ST_ABSImportanceC_ST_ABSCross-sectional assessment of epigenetic clocks provides information on the pace of aging. Whether longitudinal acceleration or deceleration of epigenetic clocks over time provides additional mortality prediction is unknown. ObjectiveTo test the independent associations of baseline levels and longitudinal changes in epigenetic clocks with mortality DesignLongitudinal study SettingInCHIANTI, a population-based study of community dwelling individuals in Tuscan...

BackgroundDifferences in biological aging have been linked to sociodemographic characteristics, but how multiple social inequalities intersect to shape biological aging differences across population subgroups remains unclear. By integrating a perspective of biology of aging with intersectionality theory, we aimed to investigate the joint influence of multiple social determinants on phenotypic age acceleration (i.e., difference between biological and chronological age). MethodsWe analysed data f...

BackgroundKetone bodies are metabolites produced during fasting or on a ketogenic diet that have pleiotropic effects on the inflammatory and metabolic aging pathways underpinning frailty in in vivo models. Ketone esters (KEs) are compounds that induce hyperketonemia without dietary changes and that may impact physical and cognitive function in young adults. The functional effects of KEs have not been studied in older adults. ObjectivesOur long-term goal is to examine if KEs modulate aging biolo...

Biological age captures a persons age-related risk of unfavorable outcomes using biophysiological information. Multivariate biological age measures include frailty scores and molecular biomarkers. These measures are often studied in isolation, but here we present a large-scale study comparing them. In two prospective cohorts (n=3,196), we compared epigenetic (DNAm Horvath, DNAm Hannum, DNAm PhenoAge, DNAm GrimAge) and metabolomic-based (MetaboAge, MetaboHealth) biomarkers in reflection of biolo...

BackgroundIntrinsic capacity (IC) is a key marker of healthy ageing, which captures an individuals physical and mental capacities, measured across five domains: cognitive, locomotor, psychological, vitality, and sensory. Although genetic factors are known to influence both general IC and its individual domains, existing IC indices have been developed primarily using phenotypic data, without accounting for the underlying biological architecture across domains. In this study, we developed a multi-...

ObjectiveTo characterize the progression and trajectory network of age-related functional impairments and assess their associations with mortality. DesignProspective cohort study. SettingThe Health and Retirement Study (HRS, 2000-2020). ParticipantsA total of 17 914 HRS participants aged from 51 to 90 years in 2000. Main outcome measureAge-related functional impairments including visual impairment, hearing impairment, cognitive impairment, physical frailty, restless sleep, and depression, al...

BackgroundAround the world, individuals are living longer, but an increased average lifespan does not always equate to an increased healthspan. With advancing age, the increased prevalence of ageing-related diseases can have a significant impact on health status, functional capacity, and quality of life. It is therefore vital to develop comprehensive classification and staging systems for ageing-related pathologies, diseases and syndromes. This will allow societies to better identify, quantify, ...

BackgroundAgeing traits and frailty are important health issues in modern medicine. Evidence supporting the causal effects from tobacco smoking on various ageing traits is warranted. MethodsThis Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis instrumented 377 genetic variants associated with being an ever smoker in a genome-wide significant level to test the causal estimates from tobacco smoking. The outcome data included 337,318 white British ancestry UK Biobank participants. Leukocyte telomere length, ...

Human social connections are complex ecosystems formed of structural, functional and quality components. Weak social connections are associated with adverse age-related health outcomes, but we know little about the ageing-related processes underlying this. Using data from 7,047 adults aged 50+ in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we explored associations between diverse aspects of social connections and both older subjective age and accelerated physiological age, which provide complement...

BackgroundFrailty is a common geriatric syndrome characterized by increased vulnerability to stressors, reduced physiological reserves and heightened vulnerability and. It is also associated with adverse health outcomes. Given its complex phenotypes and underlying pathophysiology, there is a pressing need for robust, multidimensional biomarkers of frailty to advance personalized care. The objective of this study was to identify serum metabolomics signatures associated with different frailty phen...

BackgroundFrailty and chronic inflammatory diseases are known risk factors for adverse outcomes and have been associated with epigenetic age acceleration (EAA), a quantitative estimation of biological age based on DNA methylation. We investigated the interrelationships between EAA, atherogenic dyslipidaemia and frailty; determined the best performing epigenetic clock for EAA estimation of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risks; and prospectively analysed the capacity of EAA to pred...

With aging, most older adults are at risk of having more than two diseases, conventionally defined as multimorbidity. We determined body organ disease number (BODN) as a new multimorbidity index. We measured the degree to which each disease level, from mild to severe, predicts longitudinal BODN uncoupled from chronological age. We determined Body Clock using global disease levels burden from all systems predicting longitudinal BODN for each individual, which is a proxy of the personalized rate o...

Frailty is a clinical syndrome in older adults characterized by heightened vulnerability to adverse outcomes, yet it remains under-assessed in routine practice due to time-intensive evaluation methods. Wearable accelerometers offer a promising approach for passive, continuous frailty monitoring. We analyzed data from 151 community-dwelling older adults ([≥]65 years) in the FACE Aging Study who wore hip accelerometers for seven days. Machine learning models were developed to classify baseline ...

ObjectivesTo summarize information on anti-aging substances and nanotechnology formulations against aging and to unveil emerging anti-aging approaches like gene therapy, stem cells, monoclonal antibodies, and future trends. MethodsA systematic literature search was conducted through May 10, 2021. Eligibility criteria were articles in English relevant to the aim of this review. ResultsAnti-aging substances like coenzyme Q10, curcumin, ginsenoside Rg1, bioidentical hormones, and geroprotectants,...

Cancer diagnoses are associated with better long-term memory in older adults, possibly reflecting a range of social confounders that increase cancer risk but improve memory. We used spouses memory as a negative control outcome to evaluate this possible confounding, since spouses share social characteristics and environments, and individuals cancers are unlikely to cause better memory among their spouses. We estimated the association of an individuals incident cancer diagnosis (exposure) with the...