A newly-discovered genetic signature could help doctors predict the onset of age-related diseases such as dementia or Alzheimer’s years earlier than current methods, researchers from King’s College London report in Monday’s edition of the journal Genome Biology.
In the study, lead author James Timmons, a professor of precision medicine at the university and his colleagues reported the discovery of a set of genes linked to healthy aging in men and women who were 65 years of age. This molecular profile could be used to distinguish those people at the earliest risk of age-related diseases while complementing traditional indicators, they said.
“This signature is a set of 150 molecules that we can measure in any tissue sample from a person, and the results of that test give a measure of how well they are aging,” Timmons told redOrbit via email. “We discovered the 150 markers by studying people who are fit and healthy, aged 65 years, and not doing anything ‘special’ (i.e. they did not exercise, etc.).”
“We measured this in the muscle tissue of the older people and compared their profile with young people. We then looked at the same 150 RNA molecules in skin, brain, blood, etc., and found the same changes as in muscle,” he added. In a statement, he called this “the first robust molecular ‘signature’ of biological age in humans.”
New blood test enables doctors to gauge overall health of seniors
Using this new test to determine the underlying “biological age” of people at or near the same chronological age could enable doctors to change how they make medical decisions for individual patients, Timmonds’ team said. Catching those with the highest risk of developing age-related diseases early is essential to evaluating potential treatments, they added.
The study authors analyzed the RNA of healthy 65-year-olds, then used that information find their group of 150 RNA genes associated with healthy aging. The signature turned out to be a reliable predictor for age-related disease risk when testing RNA from tissues such as human muscles, brain and skin. Combined, they can be used to come up with a “healthy age gene score” which could be used to gauge the overall health of older men and women.
“This is a very new way to think about aging,” Timmonds said. “It is no longer just a number you can tell from your birth certificate. Rather we have a diagnostic for each person’s biological age. This can help them better plan their long term medical care, identify when they should go for health screening and perhaps even how much or little to pay into their pension schemes!”
“This is the first blood test of its kind that has shown that the same set of molecules are regulated in both the blood and the brain regions associated with dementia, and it can help contribute to a dementia diagnosis,” he added in a statement. “This also provides strong evidence that dementia in humans could be called a type of ‘accelerated aging’ or ‘failure to activate the healthy aging program’.”
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