Determinants of accelerated metabolomic and epigenetic ageing in a UK cohort

Markers of biological ageing have potential utility in primary care and public health. We developed an elastic net regression model of age based on untargeted metabolic profiling across multiple platforms, including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry in urine and serum (almost 100,000 features assayed), within a large sample (N= 2,239) from the UK occupational Airwave cohort. We investigated the determinants of accelerated ageing, including genetic, lifestyle and psychological risk factors for premature mortality. The metabolomic age model was well correlated with chronological age (r = 0.85 in independent test set) and DNA methylation age. Increased metabolomic age acceleration (p