Biological age captures a person’s 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 2 prospective cohorts (n = 3 222), we compared epigenetic (DNAm Horvath, DNAm Hannum, DNAm Lin, DNAm epiTOC, DNAm PhenoAge, DNAm DunedinPoAm, DNAm GrimAge, and DNAm Zhang) and metabolomic-based (MetaboAge and MetaboHealth) biomarkers in reflection of biological age, as represented by 5 frailty measures and overall mortality. Biomarkers trained on outcomes with biophysiological and/or mortality information outperformed age-trained biomarkers in frailty reflection and mortality prediction. DNAm GrimAge and MetaboHealth, trained on mortality, showed the strongest association with these outcomes. The associations of DNAm GrimAge and MetaboHealth with frailty and mortality were independent of each other and of the frailty score mimicking clinical geriatric assessment. Epigenetic, metabolomic, and clinical biological age markers seem to capture different aspects of aging. These findings suggest that mortality-trained molecular markers may provide novel phenotype reflecting biological age and strengthen current clinical geriatric health and well-being assessment.

© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.

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TitleEpigenetic and Metabolomic Biomarkers for Biological Age: A Comparative Analysis of Mortality and Frailty Risk.
DateOctober 9th, 2023
Issue nameThe journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences
Issue numberv78.10:1753-1762
DOI10.1093/gerona/glad137
AuthorsKuiper LM, Polinder-Bos HA, Bizzarri D, Vojinovic D, Vallerga CL, Beekman M, Dollé ET, Ghanbari M, Voortman T, Reinders MJT, Verschuren WMM, Slagboom PE, van den Akker EB & van Meurs JBJ
KeywordsDNA methylation, Frailty, Mortality
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