title: Early life predictors of old-age life expectancy.
abstract: The laboratory of Richard Miller and numerous heroic collaborators are in the process of testing a variety of life span predictors on more than 1000 mice. In their most recent publication, Harper et al. show that early-adulthood measures of T cell subsets, body weight, and thyroxine can be effectively combined to provide a highly significant predictor of life expectancy. Each measure appears to be an index of largely separate parameters that affect the course of aging. This article summarizes the results, discusses implications, mentions caveats, and suggests future studies.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA. rikke@ibg.colorado.edu
authors.forename: Brad A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Rikke
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000276:immunology*; D000818:Animals; D018414:CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology*; D007156:Immunologic Memory; D008017:Life Expectancy; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008809:Mice, Inbred C3H; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008811:Mice, Inbred DBA; D016176:T-Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000276:immunology