BioProject

Markers of biological ageing have potential utility in primary care and public health. More...

Markers of biological ageing have potential utility in primary care and public health. We developed a model of age based on untargeted metabolic profiling across multiple platforms, including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry in urine and serum, within a large sample (N=2,239) from the UK Airwave cohort. We validated a subset of model predictors in a Finnish cohort including repeat measurements from 2,144 individuals. DNA methylation age was assessed for 1,110 participants using the Infinium HumanMethylation EPIC BeadChip. We investigated the determinants of accelerated ageing, including lifestyle and psychological risk factors for premature mortality. The metabolomic age model was well correlated with chronological age (mean r=0.86 across independent test sets). Increased metabolomic age acceleration (mAA) was associated after false discovery rate (FDR) correction with overweight/obesity, diabetes, heavy alcohol use and depression. DNA methylation age acceleration measures were uncorrelated with mAA. Increased DNA methylation phenotypic age acceleration (N = 1,110) was associated after FDR correction with heavy alcohol use, hypertension and low income. In conclusion, metabolomics is a promising approach for the assessment of biological age and appears complementary to established epigenetic clocks. Overall design: 1129 samples,including 14 replicates Less...