Study Finds Inflammatory-Aging Clock Can Detect Chronic Diseases

Aug, 2021 - By WMR

A team of researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging designed an inflammatory-aging clock.

The immune system plays a pivotal role in protecting the human body from foreign invaders such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, and others. The immune system counters threats to health including pathogen attacks and injuries. The natural response of the immune system to infection is known as good inflammation, which emerges and goes away within few days. However, chronic inflammation occurs due to aging. With age, low-grade inflammation occurs that leads to organ damage. Additionally, as people grow older, they become vulnerable to chronic diseases such as strokes, cancer, heart attacks, and others. Moreover, to date, there are no such assessment criteria that can predict the inflammatory status of a person. The researchers revealed that the inflammatory aging clock is more accurate than biological age in terms of predicting the immune strength of a person. This clock can predict about undiagnosed chronic diseases which, in turn, can help doctors to determine an older person’s risk for certain chronic diseases. The current study also shed light on the difference of health status of people of same age. In this study, the researchers collected blood immunome from 1,001 individuals in the age range 8 years to 96 years. They designed a deep-learning tool, iAge, on the basis of systemic age-related inflammation. iAge could predict multimorbidity and other age-related conditions. The researchers explained that CXCL9 mainly contributed to iAge. CXCL9 is a chemoxine secreted by immune cells which is involved in cardiac aging, adverse cardiac remodeling, and others. The researchers revealed that the levels of this chemoxine start to increase at the age of 60.

In a nutshell, the team of researchers concluded that higher levels of CXCL9 are directly related to higher risk for kidney failure, strokes, and heart attacks. They revealed that CXCL9 plays a key role in age-related chronic-inflammation. Thus, the inflammatory aging clock can be helpful for doctors and clinicians to detect accelerated cardiovascular aging and early detection of chronic diseases can pave the way for timely treatment.