A sex-adjusted 7-biomarker clinical aging clock for translational preventative medicine

Abstract

Abstract Biological aging clocks capture heterogeneous rates of aging in individuals and transform current medical practice toward translational preventive medicine. Here, we developed a clinical aging clock based on routine blood biochemistry markers from 59,741 healthy samples in a Southeast Asian cohort. We established a novel correction method to address the systematic skew in predictions from first-generation clocks. This correction improved the accuracy of age-acceleration predictions for disease risks and enhanced interpretability for disease-driven and organ-specific aging processes without relying on mortality data. Based on only seven biomarkers, our clock accurately predicts both self-reported and physician-annotated ICD health data, indicating an increased hazard ratio. Importantly, the clock is robust even in the presence of acute infections or transient immune activation. To demonstrate the multi-ethnic generalizability of our biological age clock, we validated our approach using data from both the NHANES and UK Biobank cohorts. Our approach demonstrates the feasibility of a simple, robust, and interpretable clinical aging clock with potential for real-world implementation in personalized health monitoring and preventive care.