King's College London

Academic Institute

OFHS260079

This research has two main aims. First, we will investigate whether a genetic score linked to faster aging can help predict a range of age-related diseases. This score, called a polygenic score (PGS), is calculated using information from a person’s DNA. It combines the very small effects of many genetic differences into a single measure. We will test whether this aging-related score improves prediction of diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, lung diseases, inflammatory conditions and eye diseases, beyond the genetic risk scores already available for each disease. Second, we will investigate whether this genetic score adds useful information to the risk scores already used by doctors and the NHS. These clinical risk scores combine information such as age, sex, blood pressure and smoking status to estimate a person’s risk of developing disease and to help guide decisions about screening and prevention. We will test whether adding information about genetic risk for faster aging improves these existing tools and helps identify people who are at higher risk of developing age-related diseases. Aging is the gradual, progressive and correlated decline of multiple organ systems over decades. Longitudinal studies provide evidence for substantial individual variation in the rate of aging; people born in the same year can age slower or faster than their peers. Aging itself is increasingly regarded as a potentially preventable cause of chronic disease. In fact, aging itself may be the driver of many different diseases. We recently developed accurate and reliable measures of how fast a person is aging: one taken from a blood sample (DunedinPACE) and one from a brain scan (DunedinPACNI). Each requires only a single measurement, taken at one point in time. In many cohort studies around the world, we have documented that individual variation in the rate of aging contributes to disease risk. More recently, working with colleagues at the University of Exeter, we studied the genetic factors linked to these measures of aging. Our findings suggest that faster ageing may be related to biological processes involved in how the body handles fats, repairs damaged DNA and controls inflammation. Using these genetic findings, we can now create polygenic scores, which estimate a person's inherited tendency to experience faster biological aging.

This project aligns with the priorities of the Medical Research Council: research aimed at accelerating diagnosis, preventing illness and developing new treatments in neuroscience, mental health and population medicine. The key 2026 strategic priorities that this project addresses are set out below. Disease prevention and mechanisms. Developing early diagnostics: our measures flag rapid aging, and the higher risk of disease that goes with it, as early as midlife. Understanding the origins of disease: our project tests whether aging itself contributes to causing disease, over and above the genetic risk or the lifestyle risk for any one disease. Translation and innovation. Both of our measures are practical tools that show how fast a person is aging, which supports research into new diagnostics. The blood-based measure also responds to treatment, and it has already shifted in randomised trials of calorie restriction and of Omega-3 supplements, which supports research into new therapeutics. Mental health and dementia. Our measures can predict which people with mild memory problems go on to develop the neurodegenerative disease dementia. People living with schizophrenia also age faster on our measures, which may help to explain their shorter life expectancy.

Public Health Research

28/10/2026

14/10/2026

TRE