Epidemiologists Develop New Tool for Measuring the Pace of Aging Across the Life Course

A study in eLife details a blood-DNA-methylation algorithm that reads variation in the pace of biological aging among individuals born the same year, reports Medical Xpress . Dunedin (P)ace (o)f (A)ging in (m)ethylation (DunedinPoAm) offers a novel metric for intervention trials and natural experiment studies exploring how the rate of aging may be altered by behavioral or drug therapy, or by environmental changes. "The goal of our study was to distill a measurement of the rate of biological aging based on 12-years of follow-up on 18 different clinical tests into a blood test that can be administered at a single time point," said Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health Professor Daniel Belsky. Middle-aged adults determined by DunedinPoAm to be aging faster exhibited faster declines in physical and cognitive function, and appeared older in facial photographs. Older adults that DunedinPoAM measured as aging faster were at a higher risk for chronic disease and mortality. In other analyses, DunedinPoAm collected new data that epigenetic clocks do not capture, including that 18-year-olds with histories of childhood poverty and victimization showed faster aging. DunedinPoAm predictions were derailed by a caloric restriction intervention in a randomized trial.