Associations of proteomic age clocks with lifestyle risk factors, incident chronic diseases and mortality in two European cohorts

Robinson O, Xiao H, Homann J, Viallon V, Ferrari P, Lill CM, Riboli E, Gunter MJ

1. 01

   A composite global proteomic age gap showed the strongest all-cause mortality association of any clock tested

2. 02

   Accelerated proteomic aging tracked smoking, alcohol consumption and physical inactivity

3. 03

   Higher risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, and liver, upper aero-digestive tract, lung and kidney cancers

4. 04

   Organ-specific age gaps were preferentially associated with cancers of the corresponding organ

5. 05

   Mortality prediction by proteomic clocks was comparable to - not better than - classical lifestyle risk factors

Study Design

Cohort Study

Sample Size

17,473 subjects

Study Duration

Up to 28 years of follow-up

Methodology

Prospective pre-diagnostic cohort analysis within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), using plasma SomaScan aptamer proteomics to derive global and organ-specific biological age acceleration scores.

Limitations

Observational: associations do not establish that lowering proteomic age gap changes outcomes. Predictive performance for mortality was only comparable to standard lifestyle risk factors, so incremental clinical utility over existing risk tools is unproven. European cohort - generalizability to other ancestries untested.