Reviewing Present Biomarkers of Aging
Here find an open access review of the present landscape of biomarkers of aging, both single measures and composite measures of various sorts, such as the aging clocks developed over the past fifteen years. The development of a good, consensus measure of biological age would accelerate efforts to treat aging as a medical condition, as assessing the ability of various classes of treatment to slow or reverse aging is at present a slow and expensive process - the only proven approach is a life span study. Unfortunately, all present approaches to the assessment of biological age have their challenges. The accumulation of large amounts of data for analysis proceeds in parallel with the development of better aging clocks that seek to address the known issues.
One major barrier to longevity research is evaluating the impact of interventions that improve human health and longevity because they are complex processes that occur over long time scales. Instead, measurable phenotypic traits or proxies of longevity, termed longevity biomarkers, may be used to assess the effectiveness of longevity interventions, or prognosticate clinical outcomes. Longevity biomarkers are critical tools for predicting lifespan and susceptibility to age-related diseases, but there exist a dizzying array of options, with at times contradictory readouts, and other key weaknesses.
Strengths of longevity biomarkers include providing insight into an individual's biological age, as opposed to chronological age, which is pivotal in evaluating targeted interventions that address aging and age-related conditions. However, most longevity biomarkers also exhibit notable weaknesses, such as a lack of specificity and lack of standardization across different studies and applications. These weaknesses underscore the need for more research to enhance their accuracy and reliability in long-term longitudinal studies.
In the present review, we discuss key strengths and weaknesses of popular clinical biomarkers used to predict morbidity and mortality associated with advanced age, identify existing bottlenecks, and integrate the field consensus on further directions for robust lifespan and healthspan estimation.