Dynamics of Biomarkers in Relation to Aging and Mortality

Publication date: Available online 29 April 2016 Source:Mechanisms of Ageing and Development Author(s): Konstantin G. Arbeev, Svetlana V. Ukraintseva, Anatoliy I. Yashin Contemporary longitudinal studies collect repeated measurements of biomarkers allowing one to analyze their dynamics in relation to mortality, morbidity, or other health-related outcomes. Rich and diverse data collected in such studies provide opportunities to investigate how various socio-economic, demographic, behavioral and other variables can interact with biological and genetic factors to produce differential rates of aging in individuals. In this paper, we review some recent publications investigating dynamics of biomarkers in relation to mortality, which use single biomarkers as well as cumulative measures combining information from multiple biomarkers. We also discuss the analytical approach, the stochastic process models, which conceptualizes several aging-related mechanisms in the structure of the model and allows evaluating “hidden” characteristics of aging-related changes indirectly from available longitudinal data on biomarkers and follow-up on mortality or onset of diseases taking into account other relevant factors (both genetic and non-genetic). We also discuss an extension of the approach, which considers ranges of “optimal values” of biomarkers rather than a single optimal value as in the original model. We discuss practical applications of the approach to single biomarkers...

Source: Mechanisms of Ageing and Development - April 29, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research