Inflammation, But Not Telomere Length, Predicts Successful Ageing at Extreme Old Age: A Longitudinal Study of Semi-supercentenarians.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Prospective cohort study analyzing biomarker domains against longitudinal outcomes.
PubMed 26629551 · doi:10.1016/j.ebiom.2015.07.029
What was done
Data were pooled from three Japanese prospective cohorts (TOOTH, TCS, and JSS) totaling 1,554 individuals: 684 centenarians and (semi-)supercentenarians, 167 pairs of centenarian offspring and spouses, and 536 community-living adults aged 85 to 99 years. Standardized composite z-scores were constructed across multiple domains (haematopoiesis, inflammation, lipid/glucose metabolism, liver function, renal function, cellular senescence) to evaluate prospective associations with all-cause mortality, physical capability, and cognitive function using Cox proportional hazards and linear regression models.
What was found
Inflammation predicted all-cause mortality with hazard ratios of 1.89 (95% CI: 1.21 to 2.95) in the very old and 1.36 (95% CI: 1.05 to 1.78) in (semi-)supercentenarians. In (semi-)supercentenarians, inflammation accounted for 10.8% of variance in capability and 8.6% in cognition, outperforming chronological age and sex. Centenarian offspring demonstrated lower inflammation scores than age-matched controls (Δ = -0.795, 95% CI: -1.436 to -0.154). Centenarians and their offspring maintained long telomeres, but telomere length did not predict successful ageing outcomes.
Why it matters
This study identifies systemic inflammation rather than telomere maintenance as a primary, potentially malleable biological correlate of survival, physical capability, and cognitive retention in extreme old age.
Limits
The observational design prevents causal conclusions. Findings from these Japanese cohorts may not generalize directly to other ethnic or geographic populations. The abstract does not specify exact follow-up durations or the individual constituent biomarkers of the composite scores.
Cited by
- supports A Japanese study of centenarians, semi-supercentenarians, and supercentenarians found that suppressing inflammation was the only biomarker that predicted reaching the next advanced age milestone and cognitive retention.