Intrinsic capacity (IC) is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO)Trusted Source as “all the physical and mental capacities that a person can draw on and includes their ability to walk, think, see, hear and remember.”
A person’s intrinsic capacity is influenced by a number of factors, including the presence of diseases, injuries and age-related changes.
Maintaining your intrinsic capacity is key to healthy aging. However, measuring intrinsic capacity has, until now, required sophisticated equipment and trained personnel.
The study, which is published in Nature AgingTrusted Source, suggests that the IC clock could be a useful tool for tracking aging and guiding targeted interventions to maintain function in older age.
Thomas M. Holland, MD, MS, a physician-scientist and assistant professor at the RUSH Institute for Healthy Aging, RUSH University, College of Health Sciences,
“One of the most critical aspects is that this test can be done with a simple blood or saliva sample, making it accessible and noninvasive. It tells us not just how old you are, but how well you are aging, which is much more meaningful to help inform which interventions should be implemented, if any, to help prevent future health problems,” Holland explained.
Elena Rolt, MSc, DipION, IFMCP, a Registered Nutritional Therapist and Functional Medicine Practitioner and cofounder of Health Miro, who was not involved in this research, also welcomed the findings.
“The DNA methylation-based intrinsic capacity (DNAm IC) test shows significant potential as a practical measure of biological aging,“ Rolt told MNT. “Unlike traditional epigenetic clock based tests, it also captures functional aging more directly.“
Using data from 1,014 people from the INSPIRE-T cohort, aged between 20 and 102 years, the researchers developed an IC score using five aspects of age-related decline:
- cognition
- locomotion
- sensory (vision and hearing)
- psychological
- vitality.
From blood and saliva tests, the researchers collected data on DNA methylationTrusted Source — a process that activates or deactivates genes. DNA methylation changes over time because of developmental mutations and environmental factors, and abnormal methylation patternsTrusted Source have been linked to several diseases.
They used this, and the age-related decline data, to construct an epigeneticTrusted Source predictor of IC (an “IC clock,” or DNAm IC), then evaluated associations between the IC clock and mortality.