Genetically determined prospect to become long-lived is associated with less abdominal fat and in particular less abdominal visceral fat in men

Investigating causal relationships between exposome and human longevity: a Mendelian randomization analysis

BACKGROUND

Environmental factors are associated with human longevity, but their specificity and causality remain mostly unclear. By integrating the innovative "exposome" concept developed in the field of environmental epidemiology, this study aims to determine the components of exposome causally linked to longevity using Mendelian randomization (MR) approach.

METHODS

A total of 4587 environmental exposures extracting from 361,194 individuals from the UK biobank, in exogenous and endogenous domains of exposome were assessed. We examined the relationship between each environmental factor and two longevity outcomes (i.e., surviving to the 90th or 99th percentile age) from various cohorts of European ancestry. Significant results after false discovery rates correction underwent validation using an independent exposure dataset.

RESULTS

Out of all the environmental exposures, eight age-related diseases and pathological conditions were causally associated with lower odds of longevity, including coronary atherosclerosis (odds ratio = 0.77, 95% confidence interval [0.70, 0.84], P = 4.2 × 10-8), ischemic heart disease (0.66, [0.51, 0.87], P = 0.0029), angina (0.73, [0.65, 0.83], P = 5.4 × 10-7), Alzheimer's disease (0.80, [0.72, 0.89], P = 3.0 × 10-5), hypertension (0.70, [0.64, 0.77], P = 4.5 × 10-14), type 2 diabetes (0.88 [0.80, 0.96], P = 0.004), high cholesterol (0.81, [0.72, 0.91], P = 0.0003), and venous thromboembolism (0.92, [0.87, 0.97], P = 0.0028). After adjusting for genetic correlation between different types of blood lipids, higher levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (0.72 [0.64, 0.80], P = 2.3 × 10-9) was associated with lower odds of longevity, while high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (1.36 [1.13, 1.62], P = 0.001) showed the opposite. Genetically predicted sitting/standing height was unrelated to longevity, while higher comparative height size at 10 was negatively associated with longevity. Greater body fat, especially the trunk fat mass, and never eat sugar or foods/drinks containing sugar were adversely associated with longevity, while education attainment showed the opposite.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study supports that some age-related diseases as well as education are causally related to longevity and highlights several new targets for achieving longevity, including management of venous thromboembolism, appropriate intake of sugar, and control of body fat. Our results warrant further studies to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of these reported causal associations.

Determinants of accelerated metabolomic and epigenetic aging in a UK cohort

Markers of biological aging have potential utility in primary care and public health. We developed a model of age based on untargeted metabolic profiling across multiple platforms, including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry in urine and serum, within a large sample (N = 2,239) from the UK Airwave cohort. We validated a subset of model predictors in a Finnish cohort including repeat measurements from 2,144 individuals. We investigated the determinants of accelerated aging, including lifestyle and psychological risk factors for premature mortality. The metabolomic age model was well correlated with chronological age (mean r = .86 across independent test sets). Increased metabolomic age acceleration (mAA) was associated after false discovery rate (FDR) correction with overweight/obesity, diabetes, heavy alcohol use and depression. DNA methylation age acceleration measures were uncorrelated with mAA. Increased DNA methylation phenotypic age acceleration (N = 1,110) was associated after FDR correction with heavy alcohol use, hypertension and low income. In conclusion, metabolomics is a promising approach for the assessment of biological age and appears complementary to established epigenetic clocks.

Obesity with abundant subcutaneous adipose tissue increases the risk of post-ERCP pancreatitis

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE

The risk factors for post-endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography pancreatitis (PEP) have been widely investigated. However, studies focusing on the body mass index (BMI) and distribution of adipose tissue have not been reported. Therefore, we examined the correlation between PEP and these factors.

METHODS

A total of 583 consecutive endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP)-naïve patients undergoing therapeutic ERCP were retrospectively analyzed. Subjects were categorized into four groups by BMI: underweight, normal, overweight, and obesity; the PEP rates were compared. In addition, the relationship between PEP and parameters of obesity, visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue as well as abdominal circumference was investigated.

RESULTS

PEP rate was significantly higher in obesity (30 %) and lower in normal (3 %, P < 0.001). The PEP rate in underweight (7.3 %) was conversely higher than in normal. As for parameters of obesity, only subcutaneous adipose tissue was correlated with PEP incidence (P = 0.009). The correlation of PEP incidence with BMI and subcutaneous adipose tissue was separately reconfirmed by multivariate analysis including female gender and guidewire placement; these factors showed a tendency toward differences in univariate analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

Obesity could be a risk factor for PEP. In the obesity group, an excess of subcutaneous adipose tissue might be an especially important factor related to PEP incidence.