This 2019 worldwide review of epigenetic clocks was a semi-anonymous mishmash of opinions, facts, hypotheses, unwarranted extrapolations, and beliefs. The diversity of viewpoints among the 21 coauthors wasn’t evident. 1. Citations of the coauthors’ works seemed excessive, and they apologized for omissions. However, Challenge 5 was titled “Single-cell analysis of aging changes and disease” and … Continue reading An epigenetic clock review by committee
This 2019 UK human study conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of two epigenetic clocks using 13,493 European-ancestry individuals aged between ten and 98 years: “Horvath-EAA, described in previous publications as ‘intrinsic’ epigenetic age acceleration (IEAA), can be interpreted as a measure of cell-intrinsic ageing that exhibits preservation across multiple tissues, appears unrelated to … Continue reading A GWAS meta-analysis of two epigenetic clocks
This 2019 review of epigenetic clocks by Washington cancer researchers repeatedly returned to an argument for randomness as a cause for aging and disease: “A time-dependent stochastic event process, like epigenetic drift, could lead to cancer formation through the accumulation of random epigenetic alterations that, through chance, eventually alter epigenetic driver gene expression leading to … Continue reading A strawman argument against epigenetic clocks
This 2019 UK/Canada/Germany human study investigated thirteen developmental disorders to identify genes that changed aspects of the epigenetic clock: “Sotos syndrome accelerates epigenetic aging [+7.64 years]. Sotos syndrome is caused by loss-of-function mutations in the NSD1 gene, which encodes a histone H3 lysine 36 (H3K36) methyltransferase. This leads to a phenotype which can include: Prenatal and … Continue reading Developmental disorders and the epigenetic clock
This 2018 presentation by the founder of the epigenetic clock method described the state of the art up through July 2018. The webinar was given on the release day of The epigenetic clock now includes skin study. Segments before the half-hour mark provide an introduction to the method and several details about the concurrently-released study. … Continue reading An hour of the epigenetic clock
This 2018 Chinese study was a series of statistical and methodological counter-arguments to a previous epigenetic clock study finding that: “Only [CpG] sites mapping to the ELOVL2 promoter constitute cell and tissue-type independent aDMPs [age-associated differentially methylated positions].” The study used external data sets and the newer epigenetic clock’s fibroblast data in its analyses to … Continue reading Epigenetic clock statistics and methods
The founder of the epigenetic clock technique was interviewed for MIT Technology Review: “We need to find ways to keep people healthier longer,” he says. He hopes that refinements to his clock will soon make it precise enough to reflect changes in lifestyle and behavior.” The journalist attempted to dumb the subject down “for the … Continue reading A slanted view of the epigenetic clock
The originator of the 2013 epigenetic clock improved its coverage with this 2018 UCLA human study: “We present a new DNA methylation-based biomarker (based on 391 CpGs) that was developed to accurately measure the age of human fibroblasts, keratinocytes, buccal cells, endothelial cells, skin and blood samples. We also observe strong age correlations in sorted neurons, … Continue reading The epigenetic clock now includes skin
This 2018 German human study’s last sentence was: “Additionally we found an association between DNAm [DNA methylation] age acceleration and rLTL [relative leukocyte telomere length], suggesting that this epigenetic clock, at least partially and possibly better than other epigenetic clocks, reflects biological age.” Statements in the study that contradicted, qualified, and limited the concluding sentence … Continue reading Hijacking the epigenetic clock paradigm
We’ll start with a 2018 epigenetic clock human study from Finland: “We evaluated the association between maternal antenatal depression and a novel biomarker of aging at birth, namely epigenetic gestational age (GA) based on fetal cord blood methylation data. We also examined whether this biomarker prospectively predicts and mediates maternal effects on early childhood psychiatric … Continue reading A trio of epigenetic clock studies
