Biological aging linked to advanced heart-kidney-metabolic syndrome
In UK Biobank’s highest age-acceleration groups, hazard ratios—comparing progression rates—were 1.44 for PhenoAge versus 1.22 for another biological age measure.
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
An observational analysis included 34,694 participants in NHANES, 347,889 in UK Biobank and 6,981 in China’s Tongzhou Cohort Study. Researchers compared two estimates of biological age based on clinical measurements: Phenotypic Age, called PhenoAge, and Klemera-Doubal Method Biological Age. They assessed biological age acceleration, meaning biological age ahead of age in years.
Greater acceleration was associated with advanced cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome, which spans heart health, kidney health and metabolism—the body’s processing of energy. PhenoAge showed stronger associations than the other measure across all three cohorts. NHANES assessed participants at one point in time and measured existing advanced syndrome. UK Biobank and Tongzhou followed participants over time and tracked new cases. Their results suggested that PhenoAge could offer better risk assessment than the other biological age measure.
Why it matters
Clinical estimates of biological aging may help identify people at risk before linked heart, kidney and metabolic problems reach advanced stages.
Caveats
This observational analysis cannot establish cause and effect. The conference abstract did not report participants’ ages, sex breakdown, follow-up duration or the reference groups for its hazard ratios.
