ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences2022
Inflammation and Epigenetic Aging Are Largely Independent Markers of Biological Aging and Mortality.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- About half of older adults have two or more chronic conditions at the same time: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
- DNA methylation-based surrogate markers of C-reactive protein and their associations with health-related traits.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Phenotypic age metrics for risk stratification of chronic disease burden and all-cause mortality in adults.Cardiovascular diabetology. Endocrinology reports · 2026Article
- Association of muscle mass and strength with blood-based epigenetic aging among middle-aged and older adults in the United States.GeroScience · 2026Article
- State educational contexts in childhood and systemic inflammation in later life: Evidence from the health and retirement study.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Biological age acceleration predicts mortality and heart failure after acute myocardial infarction in older adults.Journal of geriatric cardiology : JGC · 2026Article
- Interferon-related inflammaging links epigenetic age acceleration to multimorbidity.Cell genomics · 2026Article
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- Longitudinal association of circulating inflammatory biomarkers with epigenetic ageing in the Young Finns Study.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Association of plasma metabolites with epigenetic age acceleration: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study.Biogerontology · 2025Article
- A novel DNA methylation-based surrogate biomarker for chronic systemic inflammation (Inflammation Latent Variable Methylation Surrogate, InfLaMeS).The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2025Article
- Androgen receptor gene polymorphism and biological age markers in men.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Adolescent depression, childhood maltreatment, and the immune system; a role for epigenetic aging?Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2025Article
- Work-related stress and burnout: Is epigenetic aging the missing link?Clinical epigenetics · 2025Article
- Article
- Using machine-learning to identify differences in the association between blood-based biomarkers and later life health across race and ethnicity.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2025Article
- Age and Inflammation: Insights on "Age Three Ways" from Midlife in the United States Study.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2025Article
- Epigenetic clocks as mediators of health behaviors and mortality in middle-aged and older adults.The journal of nutrition, health & aging · 2025Article
- Perspective: clinical relevance of epigenetic aging and HIV.Epigenomics · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Limited evidence exists on the link between inflammation and epigenetic aging. We aimed to (a) assess the cross-sectional and prospective associations of 22 inflammation-related plasma markers and a signature of inflammaging with epigenetic aging and (b) determine whether epigenetic aging and inflammaging are independently associated with mortality. Blood samples from 940 participants in the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study collected at baseline (1990-1994) and follow-up (2003-2007) were assayed for DNA methylation and 22 inflammation-related markers, including well-established markers (eg, interleukins and C-reactive protein) and metabolites of the tryptophan-kynurenine pathway. Four measures of epigenetic aging (PhenoAge, GrimAge, DunedinPoAm, and Zhang) and a signature of inflammaging were considered, adjusted for age, and transformed to Z scores. Associations were assessed using linear regression, and mortality hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were estimated using Cox regression. Cross-sectionally, most inflammation-related markers were associated with epigenetic aging measures, although with generally modest effect sizes (regression coefficients per SD ≤ 0.26) and explaining altogether between 1% and 11% of their variation. Prospectively, baseline inflammation-related markers were not, or only weakly, associated with epigenetic aging after 11 years of follow-up. Epigenetic aging and inflammaging were strongly and independently associated with mortality, for example, inflammaging: HR = 1.41, 95% CI = 1.27-1.56, p = 2 × 10-10, which was only slightly attenuated after adjustment for 4 epigenetic aging measures: HR = 1.35, 95% CI = 1.22-1.51, p = 7 × 10-9). Although cross-sectionally associated with epigenetic aging, inflammation-related markers accounted for a modest proportion of its variation. Inflammaging and epigenetic aging are essentially nonoverlapping markers of biological aging and may be used jointly to predict mortality.
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Registered trials
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