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Biodemography of Aging pp 21–45Cite as

Age Trajectories of Physiological Indices: Which Factors Influence Them?

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Part of the book series: The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis ((PSDE,volume 40))

Abstract

Longitudinal data on aging, health, and longevity provide researchers with a unique opportunity to observe aging-related changes in biomarkers that describe the functioning of individual organisms during people’s life courses. In this chapter, empirical estimates of the mean values of eight physiological variables are calculated for several groups of individuals using longitudinal data on participants of the original cohort from the Framingham Heart Study. These variables include: diastolic blood pressure, systolic blood pressure, pulse pressure, body mass index, serum cholesterol, blood glucose, hematocrit, and ventricular rate. The results of analyses of age trajectories of these variables show that they depend on various genetic and non-genetic factors affecting human lifespan. The patterns of physiological aging changes differ between the shorter-lived and the longest-lived individuals, as well as between individuals with shorter and longer healthspans. A particularly notable finding was that health and extreme longevity were associated with different patterns of aging changes in physiological variables indicating that longevity can be linked to a postponement of the aging changes in physiological variables rather than to their “healthier” values. To further uncover mechanisms responsible for the dynamic behavior of physiological variables from analysis of longitudinal human data, one needs appropriate statistical models that link aging-related changes in these variables with health and survival outcomes.

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Acknowledgements

The research reported in this paper was supported by the National Institute on Aging grants R01AG027019, R01AG030612, R01AG030198, 1R01AG046860, and P01AG043352. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Aging or the National Institutes of Health. The Framingham Heart Study (FHS) is conducted and supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in collaboration with the FHS Investigators. This manuscript was prepared using a limited access dataset obtained from the NHLBI and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of the FHS or the NHLBI.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biodemography of Aging Research Unit, Center for Population Health and Aging, Duke Population Research Institute & Social Science Research Institute at Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Anatoliy I. Yashin, Liubov S. Arbeeva, Konstantin G. Arbeev, Igor Akushevich, Alexander M. Kulminski, Eric Stallard & Svetlana V. Ukraintseva

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  1. Anatoliy I. Yashin
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  2. Liubov S. Arbeeva
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  3. Konstantin G. Arbeev
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  7. Svetlana V. Ukraintseva
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Correspondence to Anatoliy I. Yashin .

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Yashin, A.I. et al. (2016). Age Trajectories of Physiological Indices: Which Factors Influence Them?. In: Biodemography of Aging. The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis, vol 40. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7587-8_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7587-8_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-017-7585-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-7587-8

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