Higher immune age linked to lower vaccine antibody levels
In an observational preprint involving 658 fully vaccinated adults, both higher immune-age scores and older age were linked to lower antibody levels after COVID-19 vaccination.
Limit: BMI, smoking, and chronic disease were self-reported and could be misclassified
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Researchers conducted an observational study of 658 fully vaccinated adults who lacked prior immunity to the COVID-19 virus when vaccination began. They compared chronological age and the Immune Age Index, an estimate of immune aging, with levels of antibodies targeting part of the virus’s spike protein. Both older age and higher immune-age scores were linked to lower antibody levels.
Women had immune-age scores matching those of men roughly eight years younger and had higher antibody responses across the age range. Among 353 participants given two doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine, antibody levels declined steadily with chronological age. But levels stayed stable across lower immune-age scores before declining beyond a score equivalent to about 60 years of life.
Why it matters
Age-related immune decline can weaken vaccine responses. Measuring immune aging may help capture differences in immune function that years lived alone miss.
Caveats
These observational antibody findings do not establish cause and effect or protection against illness. The report is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed.
From the paper
- Participants
Demographic and epidemiological characteristics of the included 658 participants are summarized in Table 1.
Quoted word for word from the full text on researchsquare.com.
The paper
Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors
Research Square, Oct 27, 2026, Open access, Preprint, not peer-reviewed
