A team at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands has presented a simpler version of a blood score that it says can show, in middle age, who is on track to age in good health and who is at higher risk of decline1. The new version uses just ten blood markers that doctors are already used to checking1. Joris Deelen presented the work at FAPESP Week Netherlands, a meeting tied to the São Paulo research funding agency FAPESP1.
The researchers frame the score as a way to catch problems early. Studies in several countries suggest about 60% of people over 65 now live with two or more long-term illnesses at once, according to the report on the talk1.
What was presented
The score measures metabolites: the small chemicals the body makes and uses as it runs, such as fats, sugars and markers of inflammation1. Because biological aging cannot be measured directly, the team looked for warning signs in blood instead1.
The original work drew on blood from 44,000 volunteers who were followed for several years in 12 studies across Europe1. The researchers measured more than 200 substances1. During the follow-up, 5,500 of the volunteers died, and the team looked at which substances in their blood had signaled a higher risk of death1. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging in Cologne, Germany, also took part1.
The update was done with help from Brazil. Deelen said an exchange student from São Paulo, Gabriela Natalle Lopes of the Albert Einstein Israelite Faculty, worked with the Leiden group to make the score personal and better suited to clinical use1. It was changed in three steps1:
- The math was adjusted using data from the Dutch population, so each person gets their own result1.
- The test was cut from hundreds of items to ten common blood markers1.
- The direction was flipped so a higher number means better health1.
“In the original scoring, a high number was bad; we decided to change it so that a higher score indicates better health,”
Deelen said1.
The evidence so far
According to the report, the new version was even better than the old one at predicting cardiometabolic diseases, meaning illnesses of the heart, blood vessels and metabolism such as diabetes, heart attack and stroke1. Deelen said a one-point rise on the new scale matched an average delay of 14 years before a person’s first such disease1. The report does not explain how wide one point is on the scale, or how that figure was worked out.
The score also lined up with other signs of healthy aging, including thinking skills, lung capacity and handgrip strength, which reflects overall muscle function1.
The team tested whether the score could be moved. Groups of volunteers went through lifestyle changes and strength training programs1. Across the whole group, the score did not change significantly1. When people were split by their starting score, those below average saw lower fasting insulin and triglycerides (a type of fat in the blood) and better body composition1.
“That indicates that the score is an excellent indicator for identifying who really needs intervention and for monitoring the health gains provided by exercise.”
That is Deelen’s reading of the results1.
The group’s analyses suggest the score is about 40% set by genes and 60% by lifestyle and environment1. Smoking had the biggest negative effect of the habits studied, while more regular physical activity was linked to a better score1. Deelen also said that malnutrition in childhood shows up in the score later in adulthood1. The report quotes him saying it “raises” the score, which may refer to the original scale where higher was worse; the report does not make this clear.
What it does not show yet
This news comes from a conference talk, described in a news release. The release does not point to a published paper on the updated score, and it does not name the ten markers.
The score was built by following people over time and seeing who got sick or died. That kind of data can show who is at higher risk. It cannot show that pushing someone’s score up will delay disease. The exercise and lifestyle programs changed some blood measures in people who started out less healthy, but the report does not say how many people took part, for how long, or whether anyone’s later health changed.
The score was also tuned on Dutch data1. The report does not say whether it has been checked in people outside Europe, including in Brazil, where the student who helped update it is based.
Who is behind it
The work is led from Leiden University Medical Center, with the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging as a partner on the original research1. It was presented at an event organized around FAPESP, and the report was published by FAPESP’s news agency1. The report does not list who paid for the score’s development or whether any researcher has a commercial interest in it.
Deelen said the project matters in Europe because the number of healthy years after 65 varies so much, from about four in Romania to ten in the Netherlands1. He put that gap down mainly to income and social status, education, lifestyle and genes1.
How it fits the field
Many groups are trying to boil health in later life down to a single number. In China, researchers built a “healthy aging score” for 5,409 people aged 60 and over from thinking, mobility, daily tasks, housing and a list of chronic illnesses2. Over seven years, people with poor scores lived a median 2.46 years less than those with high scores2. Unlike the Leiden score, that one relied on questionnaires and diagnoses rather than blood2.
The diseases the Leiden score targets often travel together. A Chinese survey of 41,859 older adults found that having two or more of heart disease, stroke and diabetes was tied to more than double the odds of people reporting memory and thinking worries3. The authors called for joint management of these illnesses and lifestyle risks3.
Other teams look for aging signals in genes rather than blood chemistry. A 2019 mouse study found a set of genes whose activity shifted in similar ways across 17 different treatments that lengthen lifespan in animals4. That work was in mice, not people4.
The same FAPESP report also described research at the Federal University of São Carlos in Brazil, led by Tiago da Silva Alexandre, on chemical signaling between muscle, bone, fat and the brain, which the team links to both muscle aging and dementia1.
What to watch next
- A peer-reviewed paper that names the ten markers and shows how the updated score was tested.
- Whether the score holds up in people outside the Netherlands and Europe.
- Larger, longer studies that check whether raising the score is followed by fewer heart attacks, strokes or cases of diabetes.
- Whether the Leiden and Brazilian groups take the work into clinics, which the update was designed for1.
