Cheek cells can predict your risk of death

We all know that people age at different paces, and while some may enjoy a longer lifespan due to genetic inheritance, others may experience accelerated biological aging as a result of various lifestyle and behavioral factors. These factors range from stress and poor sleep to unhealthy nutrition, smoking, and alcohol consumption.

Interestingly, these environmental influences leave imprints on our genome, marked as epigenetic modifications. By studying these markers, scientists can potentially quantify molecular aging.

Epigenetic aging clocks

Over the years, researchers have devised several “epigenetic aging clocks,” which are essentially calibrated against the individual’s age and various lifestyle factors.

Most of these clocks center around DNA methylation in blood cells. However, this method of collecting samples is not only challenging but also stressful for the patient.

In response to this, a team of scientists in the United States have created CheekAge, a second-generation clock that utilizes methylation data from simple-to-collect cheek cells.

Estimating mortality with cheek cells

A recent study has confirmed for the first time that CheekAge accurately predicts the risk of mortality, even when the epigenetic data from other tissues are used.

“We also demonstrate that specific methylation sites are especially important for this correlation, revealing potential links between specific genes and processes and human mortality captured by our clock,” noted Dr. Maxim Shokhirev, the Head of Computational Biology and Data Science at the company Tally Health in New York.

CheekAge was developed by correlating the methylation fraction at approximately 200,000 sites with an overall health and lifestyle score. This technique aims to reflect any differences in physiological aging.

Cheek cells vs. blood data

The study used data from 1,513 individuals born in 1921 and 1936, traced throughout their lives by the University of Edinburgh‘s Lothian Birth Cohorts (LBC) program.

The program’s primary objective was to correlate variances in cognitive aging with lifestyle, psychosocial factors, and biomedical, genetic, epigenetic, and brain imaging data.

Data on mortality were collected from the Scottish National Health Service Central Register. The results were remarkably encouraging.

“CheekAge is significantly associated with mortality in a longitudinal dataset and outperforms first-generation clocks trained in datasets containing blood data,” noted the researchers.

Cheek cells predict mortality

More interestingly, a single standard deviation increase in CheekAge was equivalent to a 21% hike in all-cause mortality hazard ratio. This indicates that CheekAge is strongly associated with mortality risk in older adults.

“The fact that our epigenetic clock trained on cheek cells predicts mortality when measuring the methylome in blood cells suggests there are common mortality signals across tissues,” said Dr. Shokhirev.

“This implies that a simple, non-invasive cheek swab can be a valuable alternative for studying and tracking the biology of aging.”

How do genes impact lifespan?

The study also examined methylation sites with high mortality association. Genes situated around these highlighted sites could potentially affect lifespan or the risk of age-related diseases.

Two of the genes that captured the researchers’ attention were PDZRN4, a possible tumor suppressor, and ALPK2, implicated in cancer and heart health.

“It would be intriguing to determine if genes like ALPK2 impact lifespan or health in animal models. Future studies are also needed to identify what other associations besides all-cause mortality can be captured with CheekAge,” said Dr Adiv Johnson.

Ultimately, the CheekAge discovery is a powerful that has the potential to revolutionize how we approach aging and age-related diseases.

“These data suggest that adult buccal tissue, which is relatively painless and easy to collect in a variety of settings, may represent a rich source of aging biomarkers,” concluded the researchers.

Biological age vs. chronological age

Biological age refers to the age of your cells and tissues based on various biological markers, rather than the number of years you’ve been alive (chronological age).

It reflects how well your body is functioning and how quickly it is aging, considering factors like genetics, lifestyle, environmental exposures, and overall health.

For example, someone with a healthy lifestyle might have a biological age younger than their chronological age, while someone with chronic health conditions might have a higher biological age.

Knowing your biological age is important because it provides a more accurate picture of your overall health and aging process than chronological age alone

The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Aging.

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