Researchers suggest that blood tests could be used to determine the biological age of a person's organs, which would allow them to address health issues before they manifest. According to a study undertaken by US scientists, the method could also be utilized to predict the progression of illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease. Research suggests that individuals whose organs age faster than the rest of their bodies are at an increased risk of developing organ-specific diseases within 15 years.
The team, led by researchers from Stanford University in California, used machine learning to analyze protein levels in human blood. The study focused on 11 organs, organ systems, or tissues, including the brain, heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, pancreas, and intestines, as well as the immune system, muscles, fat, and vasculature.
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To develop their algorithm, the researchers looked at the protein levels in the blood of 1,398 healthy people at the Knight Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, ranging in age from 20 to 90, with a concentration on the middle to late stages of life.
The researchers identified 858 organ-specific proteins by analyzing nearly 5,000 proteins and pinpointing those with genes that displayed a fourfold increase in activation in one organ as compared to another organ. Subsequently, the algorithm was trained to estimate a person's age using these specific proteins.
The study’s senior author, Tony Wyss-Coray, a professor of neurology and the DH Chen Professor II at Stanford University, said: “We can estimate the biological age of an organ in an apparently healthy person. That, in turn, predicts a person’s risk for disease related to that organ.”
The researchers tested their technique on a total of 5,676 patients from five separate cohorts. The findings, published in Nature, revealed that roughly 20% of the patients had a significant acceleration of aging in a specific organ, with 1.7% having aging effects in several organs.
They also discovered that accelerated organ aging was associated with a 20% to 50% increase in mortality risk. Individuals with accelerated heart aging were 250% more likely to develop heart failure, but rapid aging in the brain and vascular system outperformed the most effective available blood-based biomarker in predicting Alzheimer's progression.
In the future, Professor Wyss-Coray believes the finding may help us identify organs undergoing rapid aging in people's bodies and treat them before they become ill if it can be replicated in a larger sample of 50,000 to 100,000 people.
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The development of more accurate and less intrusive methods for detecting signals of age-related disorders, such as the early symptoms and progression of Alzheimer's, is an essential step toward curing them. Continuous research is needed to enhance and evaluate tools of this type, putting us ahead in the fight against these diseases.
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