title: A Frailty Index Based On Deficit Accumulation Quantifies Mortality Risk in Humans and in Mice.
abstract: Although many common diseases occur mostly in old age, the impact of ageing itself on disease risk and expression often goes unevaluated. To consider the impact of ageing requires some useful means of measuring variability in health in animals of the same age. In humans, this variability has been quantified by counting age-related health deficits in a frailty index. Here we show the results of extending that approach to mice. Across the life course, many important features of deficit accumulation are present in both species. These include gradual rates of deficit accumulation (slope = 0.029 in humans; 0.036 in mice), a submaximal limit (0.54 in humans; 0.44 in mice), and a strong relationship to mortality (1.05 [1.04-1.05] in humans; 1.15 [1.12-1.18] in mice). Quantifying deficit accumulation in individual mice provides a powerful new tool that can facilitate translation of research on ageing, including in relation to disease.
authors.affiliation: Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rockwood
authors.affiliation: Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada.
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Blodgett
authors.affiliation: Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada.
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Theou
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada.
authors.forename: M H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada.
authors.forename: H A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Feridooni
authors.affiliation: Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mitnitski
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology &Biophysics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada.
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Rose
authors.affiliation: Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Godin
authors.affiliation: Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gregson
authors.affiliation: Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada.|Department of Pharmacology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada.
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Howlett
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D000073496:Frailty / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008875:Middle Aged; D055815:Young Adult