People who have a higher biological age than their actual chronological age have a significantly increased risk of stroke and dementia, especially vascular dementia. These are the results of a study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. The study is titled, “Clinical biomarker-based biological aging and future risk of neurological disorders in the UK Biobank.”The study, which was led by Sara Hägg, associate professor, and Jonathan Mak, doctoral student at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, shows that the increased risk persists even if other risk factors such as genetics, lifestyle and socioeconomics are taken into account.
As we age, the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative disorders increases. Researchers have traditionally relied on chronological age—the number of years a person has been alive—as an approximate measure of biological age.