Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
November 15, 2018
Summary:
Accelerated DNA methylation age is linked to all-cause mortality and environmental factors, but studies of associations with socioeconomic position are limited. Studies generally use small selected samples, and it is unclear how findings with two commonly used methylation age calculations (Horvath and Hannum) translate to general population samples including younger and older adults. In 1099 UK adults aged 28-98 y in 2011-12, we assessed the relationship of Horvath and Hannum DNA methylation age acceleration with a range of social position measures: current income and employment, education, income and unemployment across a 12-year period, and childhood social class. Accounting for confounders, participants less advantaged in childhood were epigenetically ‘older’ as adults: compared to participants with professional/managerial parents, Hannum age was 1.07 years higher (95% confidence interval (CI):0.20-1.94) for those with parents in semi-skilled/unskilled occupations, and 1.85 years higher (95%CI:0.67-3.02) for participants without a working parent at age 14. No other robust associations were seen. Results accord with research implicating early life circumstances as critical for DNA methylation age in adulthood. Since methylation age acceleration as measured by the Horvath and Hannum estimators appears strongly linked to chronological age, research examining associations with the social environment must take steps to avoid age-related confounding.
Published in
American Journal of Epidemiology
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 187 , p.2 -2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwy155
ISSN
29262
Subjects
Notes
Open Access
© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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