The study provides evidence that biological age might play a causal role in the increased risk of certain diseases, and paves the way for interventions that could slow down this process.
The team compared four established epigenetic clocks used to measure biological ageing and their genetically predicted associations with a range of cancer types. Two were first-generation clocks which use patterns of DNA methylation strongly linked to chronological age. The others were second-generation clocks which use markers associated with increased risk of age-related diseases or death.
They found limited evidence that accelerated epigenetic age is causally linked to breast, lung, ovarian or prostate cancer.
The most striking result was seen for bowel cancer, where the results measured by one of the second-generation clocks, called GrimAge, suggested a 12% increased risk of bowel cancer with every additional year of biological age (over chronological age). These results were further corroborated by an association between biological age acceleration and parental history of bowel cancer. Further analysis suggested that evidence for the risk was stronger for colon cancer compared with rectal cancer.
Read the full University of Bristol press release
Paper: Morales Berstein et al. (2022). Assessing the causal role of epigenetic clocks in the development of multiple cancers: a Mendelian randomization study. eLife.