TY - JOUR
T1 - Do gender, disability, and morbidity affect aging rate in the LLFS? Application of indices of cumulative deficits
AU - Kulminski, Alexander M.
AU - Arbeev, Konstantin G.
AU - Christensen, Kaare
AU - Mayeux, Richard
AU - Newman, Anne B.
AU - Province, Michael A.
AU - Hadley, Evan C.
AU - Rossi, Winifred
AU - Perls, Thomas T.
AU - Elo, Irma T.
AU - Yashin, Anatoli I.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by National Institute on Aging (NIA) grants U01AG023746 and R01AG032319 . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIA or the National Institutes of Health.
PY - 2011/4
Y1 - 2011/4
N2 - We used an approach of cumulative deficits to evaluate the rate of aging in 4954 participants of the Long-Life Family Study (LLFS) recruited in the U.S. (Boston, New York, and Pittsburg) and Denmark. We used an array of 85 health-related deficits covering major health dimensions including depression, cognition, morbidity, physical performance, and disability to construct several deficit indices (DIs) with overlapping and complementary sets of deficits to test robustness of the estimates. Our study shows that the DIs robustly characterize accelerated rates of aging irrespective of specific of deficits. When a wider spectrum of health dimensions is considered these rates are better approximated by quadratic law. Exponential rates are more characteristic for more severe health dimensions. The aging rates are the same for males and females. Individuals who contracted major diseases and those who were free of them exhibited the same aging rates as characterized by the DI constructed using mild deficits. Unlike health, disability can qualitatively alter the aging patterns of the LLFS participants. We report on systemic differences in health among the LLFS centenarians residing in New York and Boston. This study highlights importance of aggregated approaches to better understand systemic mechanisms of health deterioration in long-living individuals.
AB - We used an approach of cumulative deficits to evaluate the rate of aging in 4954 participants of the Long-Life Family Study (LLFS) recruited in the U.S. (Boston, New York, and Pittsburg) and Denmark. We used an array of 85 health-related deficits covering major health dimensions including depression, cognition, morbidity, physical performance, and disability to construct several deficit indices (DIs) with overlapping and complementary sets of deficits to test robustness of the estimates. Our study shows that the DIs robustly characterize accelerated rates of aging irrespective of specific of deficits. When a wider spectrum of health dimensions is considered these rates are better approximated by quadratic law. Exponential rates are more characteristic for more severe health dimensions. The aging rates are the same for males and females. Individuals who contracted major diseases and those who were free of them exhibited the same aging rates as characterized by the DI constructed using mild deficits. Unlike health, disability can qualitatively alter the aging patterns of the LLFS participants. We report on systemic differences in health among the LLFS centenarians residing in New York and Boston. This study highlights importance of aggregated approaches to better understand systemic mechanisms of health deterioration in long-living individuals.
KW - Aging rates
KW - Cumulative indices
KW - Long-Life Family Study
KW - Longevity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79955759127&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.mad.2011.03.006
DO - 10.1016/j.mad.2011.03.006
M3 - Article
C2 - 21463647
AN - SCOPUS:79955759127
SN - 0047-6374
VL - 132
SP - 195
EP - 201
JO - Mechanisms of Ageing and Development
JF - Mechanisms of Ageing and Development
IS - 4
ER -