Little is known about how normal variation in dietary patterns in humans affects the aging process, largely because both nutrition and the physiology of aging are highly complex and multidimensional. Here, we apply the nutritional geometry framework to data from 1560 older adults followed over four years to assess how nutrient intake patterns affect the aging process. Aging was quantified via blood biomarkers integrated to measure loss of homeostasis. Additionally, we extend nutritional geometry to 19 micronutrients. Salient results include benefits of intermediate protein and vitamin E intake. Broadly, we show that there are few simple answers of "good" or "bad" nutrients – optimal levels are generally intermediate, but dependent on other nutrients. Simpler linear/univariate analytical approaches are insufficient to capture such associations. We present an interactive tool to explore the results, and our approach presents a roadmap for future studies to explore the full complexity of the nutrition-aging landscape.
Critical transition theory suggests that complex systems should experience increased temporal variability just before abrupt change, such as increases in clinical biomarker variability before mortality. We tested this in the context of hemodialysis using 11 clinical biomarkers measured every two weeks in 763 patients over 2496 patient-years. We show that variability – measured by coefficients of variation – is more strongly predictive of mortality than biomarker levels. Further, variability is highly synchronized across all biomarkers, even those from unrelated systems: the first axis of a principal component analysis explains 49% of the variance. This axis then generates powerful predictions of all-cause mortality (HR95=9.7, p<0.0001, where HR95 is a scale-invariant metric of hazard ratio across the predictor range; AUC up to 0.82) and starts to increase markedly ~3 months prior to death. Such an indicator could provide an early warning sign of physiological collapse and serve to either trigger intervention or initiate discussions around palliative care.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.