Researchers from Boston University in the U.S. have identified 26 biomarker patterns that can predict how well a person will age. Specific patterns of biomarkers have been associated with disease-free aging, future medical conditions, mortality risk and levels of physical function. The study was published in the journal, Aging Cell.
A means of identifying who's most likely to be affected by disease and who will age healthily before any symptoms appear may sound like science fiction. However, this has been the subject of recent a scientific study entitled the "Long Life Family Study," carried out by a team of researchers at the USA's Boston University, focusing on 5,000 people aged 30 to 110.
By means of a simple blood test, the researchers established that a large number of people -- around half the study's participants -- had an average "signature" or pattern of 19 biomarkers.
Others, however, had signature patterns that deviated from the norm. This was found to be associated with a higher risk of certain medical conditions, mortality and levels of physical function eight years later.
These different signatures -- of which there are 26 in total -- were notably associated with dementia, disease-free aging and disability-free aging in the presence of heart disease, for example.
"These signatures depict differences in how people age, and they show promise in predicting healthy aging, changes in cognitive and physical function, survival and age-related diseases like heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and cancer," the authors explain.
In the future, this kind of test could provide insight into the effectiveness of medications or surgical procedures seeking to prevent or delay age-related conditions.
Based on their findings, the scientists now hope to develop a "molecular-based definition of aging that leverages information from multiple circulating biomarkers to generate signatures associated with different mortality and morbidity risk."
