ArticleGenes2020
Array-Based Epigenetic Aging Indices May Be Racially Biased.
Article in Genes, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Intervention effects on self-control decrease speed of biological aging mediated by changes in substance use: A longitudinal study of African American youth.Family process · 2022Trial
- Timing of adverse childhood experiences shapes epigenetic ageing and life-history outcomes.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Association between chronic stress and the epigenome: Exploration of psychological and biological stress.PloS one · 2026Article
- What's counted counts: the implications of underrepresentation for the application of epigenetic clocks in diverse populations.Clinical epigenetics · 2025Review
- Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Brain Age Algorithm Performance: Investigating Bias Across Six Popular Methods.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- The Use of Precision Epigenetic Methods for the Diagnosis and Care of Stable Coronary Heart Disease Reduces Healthcare Costs.Advances in therapy · 2024Article
- Cumulative Stress Across the Life Course and Biological Aging in Adulthood.Psychosomatic medicine · 2024Article
- Structural racism in primary schools and changes in epigenetic age acceleration among Black and White youth.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2024Article
- Greater stress and trauma mediate race-related differences in epigenetic age between Black and White young adults in a community sample.Neurobiology of stress · 2023Article
- Metal mixtures and DNA methylation measures of biological aging in American Indian populations.Environment international · 2023Article
- Associations of stress and stress-related psychiatric disorders with GrimAge acceleration: review and suggestions for future work.Translational psychiatry · 2023Review
- Adolescent peer struggles predict accelerated epigenetic aging in midlife.Development and psychopathology · 2023Article
- An integrative framework and recommendations for the study of DNA methylation in the context of race and ethnicity.Discover social science and health · 2023Review
- Epigenetic clocks and research implications of the lack of data on whom they have been developed: a review of reported and missing sociodemographic characteristics.Environmental epigenetics · 2023Review
- Digital methylation assessments of alcohol and cigarette consumption account for common variance in accelerated epigenetic ageing.Epigenetics · 2022Article
- Characterisation of ethnic differences in DNA methylation between UK-resident South Asians and Europeans.Clinical epigenetics · 2022Article
- A biosocial return to race? A cautionary view for the postgenomic era.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2022Review
- Associations Between DNA Methylation Age Acceleration, Depressive Symptoms, and Cardiometabolic Traits in African American Mothers From the InterGEN Study.Epigenetics insights · 2022Article
- A step towards understanding disparities - linking race, ancestry, epigenetics and pain.Epigenomics · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Epigenetic aging (EA) indices are frequently used as predictors of mortality and other important health outcomes. However, each of the commonly used array-based indices has significant heritable components which could tag ethnicity and potentially confound comparisons across racial and ethnic groups. To determine if this was possible, we examined the relationship of DNA methylation in cord blood from 203 newborns (112 African American (AA) and 91 White) at the 513 probes from the Levine PhenoAge Epigenetic Aging index to ethnicity. Then, we examined all sites significantly associated with race in the newborn sample to determine if they were also associated with an index of ethnic genetic heritage in a cohort of 505 AA adults. After Bonferroni correction, methylation at 50 CpG sites was significantly associated with ethnicity in the newborn cohort. The five most significant sites predicted ancestry with a receiver operator characteristic area under the curve of 0.97. Examination of the top 50 sites in the AA adult cohort showed that methylation status at 11 of those sites was also associated with percentage European ancestry. We conclude that the Levine PhenoAge Index is influenced by cryptic ethnic-specific genetic influences. This influence may extend to similarly constructed EA indices and bias cross-race comparisons.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.