Alcohol consumption and epigenetic age acceleration across human adulthood
Research paper
Summary
A new research paper was published in Aging entitled, “Alcohol consumption and epigenetic age acceleration across human adulthood.”
How alcohol contributes to aging acceleration is not yet fully understood and remains to be studied across adulthood. In their new study, researchers researchers from Boston University School of Public Health, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Framingham Heart Study, and Tufts University conducted linear regression analyses to investigate the associations between alcohol consumption and two DNA methylation-based biological age acceleration metrics in 3823 Framingham Heart Study participants between the ages of 24 and 92 years. 53.8% of the study cohort were women.
The study found that higher long-term average alcohol consumption was significantly linked with biological age acceleration in middle-aged (45–64 years, n = 1866) and older (65–92 years, n = 1267) participants while not in young participants (24–44 years, n = 690).
For example, one additional standard drink of alcohol (~14 grams of ethanol per day) was associated with a 0.71 and 0.60 increase in PAA in middle-aged and older participants, respectively, but the association was not significant in young participants (p = 0.23).
One additional standard serving of liquor (~14 grams of ethanol) was associated with a greater increase in GAA (0.82-year) and PAA (1.45-year) than beer (GAA: 0.45-year; PAA: 0.48-year) and wine (GAA: 0.51-year; PAA: 0.91-year) in middle-aged participant group.
Abstract
The alcohol-associated biological aging remains to be studied across adulthood.
Researchers conducted linear regression analyses to investigate the associations between alcohol consumption and two DNA methylation-based biological age acceleration metrics in 3823 Framingham Heart Study participants (24–92 years and 53.8% women) adjusting for covariates.
The researchers also investigated whether the two epigenetic aging metrics mediated the association of alcohol consumption with hypertension.
They found that higher long-term average alcohol consumption was significantly associated with biological age acceleration assessed by GrimAge acceleration (GAA) and PhenoAge acceleration (PAA) in middle-aged (45–64 years, n = 1866) and older (65–92 years, n = 1267) participants while not in young participants (24–44 years, n = 690).
For example, one additional standard drink of alcohol (~14 grams of ethanol per day) was associated with a 0.71 and 0.60 increase in PAA in middle-aged and older participants, respectively, but the association was not significant in young participants (p = 0.23).
One additional standard serving of liquor (~14 grams of ethanol) was associated with a greater increase in GAA (0.82-year) and PAA (1.45-year) than beer (GAA: 0.45-year; PAA: 0.48-year) and wine (GAA: 0.51-year; PAA: 0.91-year) in middle-aged participant group.
The researchers observed that up to 28% of the association between alcohol consumption and hypertension was mediated by GAA or PAA in the pooled sample.
The findings suggest that alcohol consumption is associated with greater biological aging quantified by epigenetic aging metrics, which may mediate the association of alcohol consumption with quantitative traits, such as hypertension.
