Illness and longevity: a blood test reveals our biological age
An experimental test assesses the risk of 11 organs developing a disease within the next 10 years: the discovery by Stanford University has been published in *Nature Medicine*
Key points
- Research
- Longer life expectancy if the brain is “young”
‘By measuring thousands of proteins in blood samples taken from over 60,000 people, we have created molecular “clocks” to estimate the rate of cellular ageing. Our analyses show that different types of cells age at different rates within the same person. The accelerated ageing of specific cell types is associated with an increased risk of disease, whilst slower ageing of other cell types is linked to protection and longer survival.”
Thus, the team of researchers at Stanford University, led by Hamilton Oh, explains in *Nature Medicine* how a blood test – currently experimental but, according to the scientists, marketable within three years — which, from the brain to the heart, liver, lungs and gut, is capable of calculating the biological age and longevity of 11 organs and predicting the risk of them developing a disease within 10 years.
Research
The starting point for the research is the fact that each organ ages at a different rate, and the challenge is to identify the tell-tale signs of these changes. To identify them, researchers at Stanford analysed data on 44,498 people aged between 40 and 70, collected by the UK Biobank, which has collected blood samples and up-to-date medical records from around 600,000 individuals over a 17-year period.
Medical history matters
On this basis, nearly 3,000 proteins were identified in the blood, some of which can be linked to the activity of a single organ, in particular the brain, muscles, heart, lungs, arteries, liver, kidneys, pancreas, immune system, intestines and adipose tissue. By combining this data with individuals’ medical histories, the researchers were able to determine the average levels of each protein according to people’s age and to see how these specific values differ between people of the same age.
Longer life expectancy if the brain is “young”
These data made it possible to measure the biological age of each of the 11 organs to check for any links to disease. One of the most interesting findings concerns the brain, the true guardian of longevity: ‘If you have an old brain, you are more likely to die. If you have a young brain, you are likely to live longer,” explained Tony Wyss-Coray, one of the study’s authors. Among the study participants, one in four had more than one organ that was either extremely aged or young.
