Aging isn't just about your genes – your environment plays a bigger role,

New research has shown that, from smoking to socioeconomic status, environmental factors have a stronger impact on aging and early mortality than genetics, and moderate understanding of disease prevention.

study: Integrating the environment and genetic architecture of aging and mortality. Image credit: ShutterStock AI Generator / Shutterstock.com

recently Natural Medicine The study compares the relative contributions of genetics and environment with aging and early mortality.

Effects of environmental and genetic factors on human aging

Human aging is a complex process associated with biological and asymptomatic changes that begin in the middle period, usually between the ages of 40 and 60. Several studies report that non-genetic environmental factors can accelerate the aging process and increase the risk of early death. Almost twice as much.

Exposomes refer to the total set of environmental exposures that are interrelated throughout an individual's lifespan. Despite previous exposome-wide study designs that provide important insight into how environmental exposure affects aging, potential among exposomes, population-level mortality and age-related disease rates Few large studies have investigated independent associations.

About the research

The current study uses a robust pipeline developed to assess inverse causality and residual confounding to compare the contributions to genome and low exposure mortality and major age-related diseases. Masu.

Initially, an exposome-wide analysis was performed using UK population-based data from the UK biobank to systematically determine exposures associated with the risk of preterm birth. Phenome-wide analysis was then performed for all mortality-related exposures to eliminate exposures that were sensitive to confounding and false measurements.

A total of 176 unique exposures were available, common to both men and women. Exposures related to proteomic aging clocks were considered only. This allows for the identification of factors that are linked only to the aging process. The effects of identified exposomes were assessed in relation to the development of 25 major age-related diseases.

Genetics and the Environment: Key Contributors to Aging and Mortality

The current study included a total of 436,891 UKB participants from the UK. An additional 55,676 UKB participants from Scotland and Wales were used as validation sets for the final multivariate disease model. Median was 12. After five years of follow-up, 31,716 deaths were recorded from all causes.

This study cohort published several age-related diseases, including brain cancer and osteoarthritis. Multiple stepwise analyses were performed, including exposome-wide association studies (XWAS), phenome-wide association studies (PHEWAS), and hierarchical clustering into a single COX model. These analyses identified 25 independent exposures associated with proteomic aging, early mortality, age-related diseases, and biochemical markers of aging.

The main contributors to aging and premature death were socioeconomic status and deprivation, smoking, number of household vehicles, physical activity, ethnicity, living with partners, sleep, mental and physical health.

Nearby mother smoking at birth, as well as height and size at 10 years of age, were also associated with preterm birth. Among these factors, current smokers, individuals who report feeling more tired more frequently, and those living in council homes compared to home ownership are primarily premature death and aging. was related to.

A COX proportional hazards model was used to determine whether identified exposures increased the risk of developing age-related diseases that contributed to early death. Each of the 25 exposures was associated with a wide range of aging biomarkers associated with diverse organ systems and mechanical pathways.

Many interrelated factors link mortality and the environmental architecture of aging. This may not contribute significantly to the outcome. On average, each exposure was associated with 22 out of 25 biomarkers. For example, smoking status and ethnicity were linked to all 25 biomarkers.

Metabolic risk factors for common diseases such as obesity and hypertension were cross-sectionally related to most of the exposures studied. Therefore, many age-related diseases share a common environmental pathogenesis that may contribute to life expectancy, including early mortality.

Approximately 66% of the exposures associated with mortality were not associated with proteomic aging.

Genomic and environmental factors are attributed to high variability across many disorders. Certain diseases such as all-caused dementia, macular degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, and cancers that affect the prostate and breast were primarily affected by polygenic risk. However, diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, ischemic heart disease, and kidney disease were more affected by the exposomes.

Conclusion

The current study highlights the importance of large biobanks to provide important insights into the interactions between genetic and environmental exposures in aging and early mortality. These findings highlight the potential environment-focused interventions to prevent early mortality and the development of numerous age-related diseases.

Exposomes shape different patterns of disease and mortality risk regardless of the risk of polygenic disease. ”

In the future, causal modeling studies are needed to identify specific exposures of interest.