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Research Paper|Volume 7, Issue 11|pp 956—963

Association analysis of insulin-like growth factor-1 axis parameters with survival and functional status in nonagenarians of the Leiden Longevity Study

Evie van der Spoel1, Maarten P. Rozing1,2, Jeanine J. Houwing-Duistermaat3, P. Eline Slagboom2,4, Marian Beekman2,4, Anton J.M. de Craen1,2, Rudi G.J. Westendorp1,2,5, Diana van Heemst1,2
  • 1Department of Gerontology and Geriatrics, Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands
  • 2Netherlands Consortium of Healthy Aging (NCHA), The Netherlands
  • 3Department of Medical Statistics, Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands
  • 4Section Molecular Epidemiology, Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands
  • 5Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

* * Equal contribution

Received: September 4, 2015Accepted: November 2, 2015Published: November 12, 2015
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.100841

Copyright: © 2015 van der Spoel et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Reduced insulin/insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) signaling has been associated with longevity in various model organisms. However, the role of insulin/IGF-1 signaling in human survival remains controversial. The aim of this study was to test whether circulating IGF-1 axis parameters associate with old age survival and functional status in nonagenarians from the Leiden Longevity Study. This study examined 858 Dutch nonagenarian (males≥89 years; females≥91 years) siblings from 409 families, without selection on health or demographic characteristics. Nonagenarians were divided over sex-specific strata according to their levels of IGF-1, IGF binding protein 3 and IGF-1/IGFBP3 molar ratio. We found that lower IGF-1/IGFBP3 ratios were associated with improved survival: nonagenarians in the quartile of the lowest ratio had a lower estimated hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) of 0.73 (0.59 – 0.91) compared to the quartile with the highest ratio (ptrend=0.002). Functional status was assessed by (Instrumental) Activities of Daily Living ((I)ADL) scales. Compared to those in the quartile with the highest IGF-1/IGFBP3 ratio, nonagenarians in the lowest quartile had higher scores for ADL (ptrend=0.001) and IADL (ptrend=0.003). These findings suggest that IGF-1 axis parameters are associated with increased old age survival and better functional status in nonagenarians from the Leiden Longevity Study.