Accelerated biological aging increases risk of stroke

Accelerated biological aging of the body was associated with an increased risk of stroke, regardless of nutritional quality. This was reported by researchers whose work was published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition.

Scientists analyzed data from more than 422 thousand people from the British UK Biobank and the American NHANES study, as well as 312 patients from a Chinese hospital. Biological age was calculated using the PhenoAge indicator, which takes into account a person’s real age and nine blood parameters. UK Biobank participants were followed for an average of 16 years, during which time 11,345 people had a stroke.

Each additional year that biological age advanced was associated with about a 6 percent higher risk of stroke. In the British sample, this pattern was observed for ischemic stroke, which occurs due to disruption of the blood supply to the brain, but not for hemorrhagic stroke. While eating a healthier diet was associated with slowing biological aging by about 0.7 years, controlling for diet only slightly attenuated the association between accelerated aging and stroke.

According to the authors, the results suggest that the rate of biological aging may reflect changes in the body associated with vascular health and stroke risk that cannot be explained by diet alone.