Proteomic aging clock predicts mortality and risk of common age-related diseases in diverse populations

Summary

Circulating plasma proteins play key roles in human health and can potentially be used to measure biological age, allowing risk prediction for age-related diseases, multimorbidity and mortality. Here we developed a proteomic age clock in the UK Biobank (n = 45,441) using a proteomic platform comprising 2,897 plasma proteins and explored its utility to predict major disease morbidity and mortality in diverse populations. We identified 204 proteins that accurately predict chronological age (Pearson r = 0.94) and found that proteomic aging was associated with the incidence of 18 major chronic diseases (including diseases of the heart, liver, kidney and lung, diabetes, neurodegeneration and cancer), as well as with multimorbidity and all-cause mortality risk. Proteomic aging was also associate