A blood-based view of aging
Researchers in Europe are developing a personalized health indicator designed to provide an earlier, more detailed picture of how a person is aging. Presented by Joris Deelen of Leiden University Medical Center during FAPESP Week Netherlands, the approach uses ten blood markers to characterize metabolism and identify people who appear to be on different aging trajectories in middle age.
The goal is not to claim that aging itself can be directly measured. Instead, the work seeks a practical proxy: patterns in the chemicals circulating in blood that are associated with later health outcomes. The researchers describe the indicator as a general marker of health in middle age that could help identify people at higher risk of functional decline before that decline becomes apparent.
The effort comes amid a broader challenge for health systems. Studies in several countries indicate that roughly 60% of people older than 65 live with two or more chronic conditions. Extending the years people spend in good health, rather than only extending lifespan, is a central aim of research into healthy aging.
Data from 44,000 volunteers
The research team, which included scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging in Cologne, analyzed blood data from 44,000 volunteers followed over several years across 12 European studies. The participants’ samples were used to measure more than 200 substances, including indicators related to fats, sugars and inflammation.
During the period covered by the research, 5,500 deaths were recorded. By comparing the blood measurements with those outcomes, the team identified substances that could act as biological warning signs of a higher risk of mortality. From that broader set of measurements, the researchers created a score based on ten blood markers.
The use of multiple markers matters because metabolism is not captured by a single lab value. Blood contains signals from many processes at once, from energy use and lipid handling to inflammatory activity. A combined score is intended to turn those complex measurements into a more usable snapshot of overall metabolic health.
From research signal to clinical use
Deelen said the score was subsequently updated through a collaboration involving Brazil. Gabriela Natalle Lopes, then an exchange student from São Paulo at the Albert Einstein Israelite Faculty, worked with the Leiden group on changes intended to make the indicator more personalized and better suited to clinical interventions.
That distinction is important. A risk score is most useful when it can support a decision, such as whether to investigate a patient’s health more closely, discuss modifiable lifestyle factors, or monitor changes over time. The source material describes the tool as a way to flag people who may be heading toward poorer functional outcomes, not as a diagnosis of any one disease.
The work also reflects the difficulty of separating biological processes from the conditions in which people live. Deelen pointed to large differences in healthy life expectancy across Europe. He said people in Romania spend about four years in good health after age 65, compared with about 10 years in the Netherlands, and cited socioeconomic status, education, lifestyle and genetic factors as major contributors to that gap.
What the score can and cannot say
Blood-based indicators can be appealing because blood testing is already familiar in clinical care. Yet the score described by the researchers should be understood as a population-informed risk indicator. It was developed from associations found in long-running studies; the supplied account does not establish that changing a particular marker will necessarily change a person’s eventual health outcome.
Nor does a score eliminate the need for clinical judgment. Health status and future risk are shaped by symptoms, medical history, existing conditions, medication, social circumstances and access to care, alongside laboratory results. The indicator’s potential value is in contributing another piece of information to that wider assessment.
Still, the research illustrates a shift in how aging may be studied and managed. Rather than waiting for individual diseases or functional limitations to emerge, clinicians and researchers are looking for measurable signals that could identify vulnerability earlier. If such measures can be validated and used responsibly, they may help focus preventive attention on the people most likely to benefit from it.
A focus on healthy years
The central question behind the project is not simply how long people live, but how long they remain well enough to function independently and avoid multiple chronic conditions. The team’s ten-marker score is an attempt to translate large-scale metabolic data into a tool for that question.
Its future usefulness will depend on how reliably it performs across different populations and whether it improves real clinical decisions. For now, the study offers evidence that patterns across routine blood chemistry can carry information about later health risk—and that those patterns may help make healthy aging a more concrete target for prevention.
This article is based on reporting by Medical Xpress. Read the original article.
Originally published on medicalxpress.com
