Scientists at Duke, Harvard and the University of Otago in New Zealand have now developed a freely available tool called DunedinPACNI that can reliably estimate an individual’s chances of developing dementia and other age-related diseases by calculating whether you’re ageing faster than you should.
“The number of birthdays we celebrate doesn’t fully capture how our bodies are ageing as some people age faster than others in terms of developing age-related diseases”, said Ahmad Hariri, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.
With just one MRI brain scan, the tool can predict your risk in midlife for chronic diseases that usually show up much later in life. This insight could be used to switch to healthier lifestyle and diet choices early on.
Links between body and brain
Researchers also discovered that individuals with higher DunedinPACE scores, indicating faster ageing, experienced a decline in overall health, not limited to brain function. These individuals showed a greater chance of suffering age-related conditions like heart attacks, lung disease, and strokes.
In a test, the tool was used to analyse brain scans from 624 adults aged 52 to 89 participating in a North American Alzheimer’s study. Findings showed that those with faster biological ageing scores were:
60% more likely to develop dementia in the following years
18% more likely to be diagnosed with a chronic illness like heart or lung disease
40% more likely to die within the study’s timeframe than slower-ageing peers
“The link between the ageing of the brain and body is pretty compelling,” Hariri reported. The research not only strengthens the connection between biological ageing and cognitive decline but also highlights how ageing faster can cause both your cognitive fitness and physical health to rapidly decline.
Why is this a breakthrough?
Many similar tools have been created in the past to track how someone is ageing; however, none were nearly as accurate as most of them used data from people of different age groups at just one point in time. Since they didn’t study the same people as they aged, their results were often limited or less reliable.
“Sometimes what looks like faster ageing is actually due to exposure to harmful things like leaded petrol or cigarette smoke, which vary across generations,” said Hariri. “The real challenge is to find a way to measure how fast someone is ageing without getting confused by such environmental or historical differences,” he added.
This is where they arrived at a unique breakthrough as the scientists behind the study drew on data gathered from some 1,037 people who have been studied since birth as part of the Dunedin Study, named after the New Zealand city where they were born between 1972 and 1973.
Why is this Important?
People across the world are now living longer, and popular studies predict that by 2050, nearly one in four individuals will be over the age of 65. But with longer life spans comes a greater risk of age-related illnesses. “As more people grow older, we’ll also see a rise in chronic conditions like dementia and other age-associated diseases”, Hariri pointed out.
Hence, researchers hope that DunedinPACNI can be harnessed as a key new tool in forecasting and predicting risk for diseases and helping individuals gain a better foothold on the progression of the disease.
