Blood Test May Predict Pace of Aging, General Health

An analysis in Nature Medicine of plasma from more than 4,200 people between 18 and 95 years old found an association between 373 proteins and aging, reports United Press International . "It hasn't been appreciated that so many different proteins' levels — roughly a third of all the ones we looked at — change markedly with advancing age," said Stanford University's Tony Wyss-Coray. The implication of these findings is that physical aging is uneven, with three distinct spikes of protein levels in the blood at 34, 60, and 78. A blood test for these proteins may eventually be able to identify people who are aging abnormally faster, and face higher risk for age-related conditions like Alzheimer's or heart disease. The researchers suggested such a test also might help identify drugs or other factors that slow or accelerate aging. Still, the clinical use of such a test is at least five to 10 years away. "Ideally, you'd want to know how virtually anything you took or did affects your physiological age," Wyss-Coray noted.