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Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 1|pp 518—542

Association of adult lung function with accelerated biological aging

Faisal I. Rezwan1, Medea Imboden2,3, Andre F.S. Amaral4,5, Matthias Wielscher6, Ayoung Jeong2,3, Kai Triebner7, Francisco Gómez Real7,8, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin4,6, Deborah Jarvis4,5, Nicole M. Probst-Hensch2,3, John W. Holloway1
  • 1Human Development and Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
  • 2Chronic Disease Epidemiology Unit, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland
  • 3University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
  • 4Population Health and Occupational Disease, NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
  • 5MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
  • 6Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, MRC–PHE Centre for Environment and Health, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
  • 7Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
  • 8Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
* Co-first authors
# Co-senior authors
Received: July 8, 2019Accepted: December 23, 2019Published: January 11, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102639

Copyright: © 2020 Rezwan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Lung function, strongly associated with morbidity and mortality, decreases with age. This study examines whether poor adult lung function is associated with age accelerations (AAs). DNA methylation (DNAm) based AAs, lifespan predictors (GrimAge and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1-PAI1) and their related age-adjusted measures were estimated from peripheral blood at two time points (8-to-11 years apart) in adults from two cohorts: SAPALDIA (n=987) and ECRHS (n=509). Within each cohort and stratified by gender (except for estimators from GrimAge and PAI1), AAs were used as predictors in multivariate linear regression with cross-sectional lung function parameters, and in covariate-adjusted mixed linear regression with longitudinal change in lung function and meta-analysed.

AAs were found cross-sectionally associated with lower mean FEV1 (Forced Expiratory Volume in one second) (AA-residuals:P-value=4x10-4; Intrinsic Epigenetic AA:P-value=2x10-4) in females at the follow-up time point only, and the same trend was observed for FVC (Forced Vital Capacity). Both lifespan and plasma level predictors were observed strongly associated with lung function decline and the decline was stronger in the follow-up time points (strongest association between FEV1 and DNAmAge GrimAge:P-value=1.25x10-17).

This study suggests that DNAm based lifespan and plasma level predictors can be utilised as important factors to assess lung health in adults.