HDL Level, Age, and Smoking are the Largest Determinants of Mortality Risk in Old People

An interesting epidemiological study here stratifies the contributions of various metrics to mortality in later life, age 70 and older. The authors find that the largest effects arise from HDL level, chronological age, and smoking. The largest single cause of death in our species is atherosclerosis, a progressive malfunction in clearance of cholesterol from blood vessel walls that leads to fatty plaques, narrowed arteries, stroke, and heart attack. HDL particles carry excess cholesterol from blood vessel walls back to the liver for excretion, and - thus over a lifetime - the more HDL in circulation one has, the greater the metabolic dysfunction needed to begin in earnest the development of atherosclerotic plaque. The Duke Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (D-EPESE) is a longitudinal cohort of community-dwelling older adults designed to overcome the above-mentioned limitations. D-EPESE included 1507 participants, aged ≥71 years with biomarker data and 27 years of death data from the time of blood sample acquisition in 1992. This research aimed to identify clinical and molecular biomarkers that predict, and causally affect, longevity, from 186 clinically accessible measures that geriatricians and clinicians can, and frequently obtain in a clinic setting. We studied the relationships of patient-reported outcomes and questionnaires, and clinically available medical tests with survival status and identified optimal predictors. We ch...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs