Outperforms blood-based epigenetic clocks
In a recent study, Shokhirev and his team applied statistical programming to evaluate how effectively CheekAge predicted overall mortality in a sample of 1,513 individuals, both men and women, born in 1921 and 1936.
These participants were part of the University of Edinburgh’s Lothian Birth Cohorts (LBC) program and had been monitored throughout their lives. The Lothian Birth Cohort studies were designed as follow-ups to the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1932 and 1947, which tested the intelligence of almost every 11-year-old child attending school in Scotland in the month of June in those years.
This study shows, for the first time, that a biomarker optimized for cheek tissue can be used to predict mortality. Cheek tissue, which is easy to collect, is a valuable source of aging biomarkers. The CheekAge model outperforms earlier blood-based epigenetic clocks in predicting mortality. Simple cheek swab or saliva samples provide stronger mortality predictions.
SOURCE MATERIAL: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/aging/articles/10.3389/fragi.2024.1460360/full
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1058893
https://interestingengineering.com/health/mouth-swab-predicts-your-death
RELATED : https://lothian-birth-cohorts.ed.ac.uk/history
