ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences2021
Biological Aging Predicts Vulnerability to COVID-19 Severity in UK Biobank Participants.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 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
29 citing papers in PubMed.
- Integrating biological aging into clinical practice: a review and path forward for precision longevity medicine.GeroScience · 2026Review
- PhenoAge and PhenoAgeAccel do not outperform chronological age in predicting physical performance decline or mortality in community-dwelling older adults.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2026Article
- Identifying direct risk factors in UK Biobank via simultaneous Bayesian-frequentist model-averaged hypothesis testing using Doublethink.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- DNA methylation-based epigenetic clocks highlight immune-driven aging acceleration in COVID-19 across diverse populations.Biogerontology · 2025Article
- Ultra-processed foods, biological ageing, and all-cause mortality risk: a prospective cohort study using 172,225 participants from UK Biobank.GeroScience · 2025Article
- Plasma proteomics-based organ-specific aging for all-cause mortality and cause-specific mortality: a prospective cohort study.GeroScience · 2025Article
- Inflammation and aging-related disease: A transdisciplinary inflammaging framework.GeroScience · 2025Review
- The COVID-19 legacy: consequences for the human DNA methylome and therapeutic perspectives.GeroScience · 2025Review
- The Association Between Phenotypic Age and Primary Loss of Response to Biologic Agent in Patients with Crohn's Disease.Journal of inflammation research · 2025Article
- Association of phenotypic age and accelerated aging with severity and disability in patients with acute ischemic stroke.The journal of nutrition, health & aging · 2024Article
- Article
- Associations of combined phenotypic aging and genetic risk with incident cancer: A prospective cohort study.eLife · 2024Article
- Associations of combined phenotypic ageing and genetic risk with incidence of chronic respiratory diseases in the UK Biobank: a prospective cohort study.The European respiratory journal · 2024Article
- Risk of death due to COVID-19 among current and former smokers in the Netherlands: a population-based quasi-cohort study.International journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Geroscience and pathology: a new frontier in understanding age-related diseases.Pathology oncology research : POR · 2024Review
- The multifaceted benefits of walking for healthy aging: from Blue Zones to molecular mechanisms.GeroScience · 2023Review
- An early warning precision public health approach for assessing COVID-19 vulnerability in the UK: the Moore-Hill Vulnerability Index (MHVI).BMC public health · 2023Article
- Article
- Biological age is increased by stress and restored upon recovery.Cell metabolism · 2023Article
- Association between biological aging and lung cancer risk: Cohort study and Mendelian randomization analysis.iScience · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAge and disease prevalence are the 2 biggest risk factors for Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) symptom severity and death. We therefore hypothesized that increased biological age, beyond chronological age, may be driving disease-related trends in COVID-19 severity.
methodsUsing the UK Biobank England data, we tested whether a biological age estimate (PhenoAge) measured more than a decade prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was predictive of 2 COVID-19 severity outcomes (inpatient test positivity and COVID-19-related mortality with inpatient test-confirmed COVID-19). Logistic regression models were used with adjustment for age at the pandemic, sex, ethnicity, baseline assessment centers, and preexisting diseases/conditions.
resultsSix hundred and thirteen participants tested positive at inpatient settings between March 16 and April 27, 2020, 154 of whom succumbed to COVID-19. PhenoAge was associated with increased risks of inpatient test positivity and COVID-19-related mortality (ORMortality = 1.63 per 5 years, 95% CI: 1.43-1.86, p = 4.7 × 10-13) adjusting for demographics including age at the pandemic. Further adjustment for preexisting diseases/conditions at baseline (ORM = 1.50, 95% CI: 1.30-1.73 per 5 years, p = 3.1 × 10-8) and at the early pandemic (ORM = 1.21, 95% CI: 1.04-1.40 per 5 years, p = .011) decreased the association.
conclusionsPhenoAge measured in 2006-2010 was associated with COVID-19 severity outcomes more than 10 years later. These associations were partly accounted for by prevalent chronic diseases proximate to COVID-19 infection. Overall, our results suggest that aging biomarkers, like PhenoAge may capture long-term vulnerability to diseases like COVID-19, even before the accumulation of age-related comorbid conditions.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.