Study correlates GrimAge clock with accelerated brain ageing and cognitive decline in people with HIV
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Event tier C · Tier ceiling 74 · LONGIFI_SIGNAL_V1
Quick take
A case-control study published in EBioMedicine demonstrates that biological ageing markers remain elevated in virologically suppressed people with HIV and correlate with advanced brain ageing and socio-environmental risk factors.
What happened
Researchers conducted a case-control study comparing 126 virologically suppressed people with HIV (PWH, mean age 53.8 years) and 145 people without HIV (PWoH, mean age 48.1 years).
PWH exhibited accelerated biological ageing relative to PWoH across multiple metrics: GrimAge was elevated by 1.8 years (p < 0.001), PhenoAge was elevated by 2.4 years (p = 0.002), and the DunedinPACE longitudinal ageing rate was accelerated by 5.1% (p < 0.001), while predicted telomere length was significantly shorter (p < 0.001).
GrimAge was shown to positively correlate with the brain age gap, indicating an additional 5.9 years of brain age per decade of GrimAge (p = 0.002) across all participants, alongside poorer cognitive performance in specific domains.
The Area Deprivation Index (p = 0.001) and cardiovascular risk (p = 0.008) were positively associated with increased GrimAge, whereas education level (p = 0.002) was negatively associated with it.
Why it matters
The findings suggest that biological and neurological ageing alterations persist in individuals with HIV despite successful viral suppression.
By linking epigenetic clock metrics directly to structural brain MRIs and cognitive deficits, the study supports the validity of epigenetic clocks as systemic biomarkers of neural deterioration.
The strong correlation between socio-environmental factors, comorbidities, and epigenetic age indicates that non-biological, modifiable risk factors significantly confound biological ageing metrics.
Market impact
The validation of epigenetic clocks in clinical cohorts helps establish these metrics as robust secondary endpoints for future longevity therapeutic trials.
The significant impact of socioeconomics and cardiovascular health on GrimAge emphasizes the need for longevity biotech companies to carefully stratify clinical trial cohorts to control for these modifiable confounding variables.
What comes next
Future clinical investigations tracking whether longevity-focused therapeutics or systemic anti-inflammatory drugs can reduce GrimAge and slow cognitive decline in virally suppressed clinical populations.
Sources
- NCBIPUBMED:LONGEVITY_RESEARCH