title: Ultra-weak photon emission of hands in aging prediction.
abstract: Aging has been one of the several topics intensely investigated during recent decades. More scientists have been scrutinizing mechanisms behind the human aging process. Ultra-weak photon emission is known as one type of spontaneous photon emission that can be detected with a highly sensitive single photon counting photomultiplier tube (PMT) from the surface of human bodies. It may reflect the body's oxidative damage. Our aim was to examine whether ultra-weak photon emission from a human hand is able to predict one's chronological age. Sixty subjects were recruited and grouped by age. We examined four areas of each hand: palm side of fingers, palm side of hand, dorsum side of fingers, and dorsum side of hand. Left and right hand were measured synchronously with two independent PMTs. Mean strength and Fano factor values of photon counts were utilized to compare the UPE patterns of males and females of different age groups. Subsequently, we utilized UPE data from the most sensitive PMT to develop an age prediction model. We randomly picked 49 subjects to construct the model, whereas the remaining 11 subjects were utilized for validation. The results demonstrated that the model was a good regression compared to the observed values (Pearson's r=0.6, adjusted R square=0.4, p=9.4E-7, accuracy=49/60). Further analysis revealed that the average difference between the chronological age and predicted age was only 7.6±0.8years. It was concluded that this fast and non-invasive photon technology is sufficiently promising to be developed for the estimation of biological aging.
authors.affiliation: BGI Education Center, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518083, China; BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Meluna Research, Geldermalsen, The Netherlands; Sino-Dutch Centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine/Centre for Photonics of Living Systems, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Eduard
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van Wijk
authors.affiliation: Meluna Research, Geldermalsen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Meluna Research, Geldermalsen, The Netherlands; Sino-Dutch Centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine/Centre for Photonics of Living Systems, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Roeland
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: van Wijk
authors.affiliation: BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China; James D. Watson Institute of Genome Sciences, Hangzhou 310058, China.
authors.forename: Huanming
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. Electronic address: yanzhang@genomics.cn.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: BGI Education Center, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518083, China; BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China; James D. Watson Institute of Genome Sciences, Hangzhou 310058, China. Electronic address: Jianwang@genomics.cn.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D017785:Photons; D012737:Sex Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Aging; Model prediction; Ultra-weak photon emission