Associations of combined phenotypic ageing and genetic risk with incidence of chronic respiratory diseases in the UK Biobank: a prospective cohort study

Background Accelerated biological ageing has been associated with an increased risk of several chronic respiratory diseases. However, the associations between phenotypic age, a new biological age indicator based on clinical chemistry biomarkers, and common chronic respiratory diseases have not been evaluated. Methods We analysed data from 308 592 participants at baseline in the UK Biobank. The phenotypic age was calculated from chronological age and nine clinical chemistry biomarkers, including albumin, alkaline phosphatase, creatinine, glucose, C-reactive protein, lymphocyte percent, mean cell volume, red cell distribution width and white blood cell count. Furthermore, phenotypic age acceleration (PhenoAgeAccel) was calculated by regressing phenotypic age on chronological age. The associations of PhenoAgeAccel with incident common chronic respiratory diseases and cross-sectional lung function were investigated. Moreover, we constructed polygenic risk scores and evaluated whether PhenoAgeAccel modified the effect of genetic susceptibility on chronic respiratory diseases and lung function. Results The results showed significant associations of PhenoAgeAccel with increased risk of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) (hazard ratio (HR) 1.52, 95% CI 1.45–1.59), COPD (HR 1.54, 95% CI 1.51–1.57) and asthma (HR 1.18, 95% CI 1.15–1.20) per 5-year increase and decreased lung function. There was an additive interaction between PhenoAgeAccel and the genetic risk for IPF and COPD. Participants with high genetic risk and who were biologically older had the highest risk of incident IPF (HR 5.24, 95% CI 3.91–7.02), COPD (HR 2.99, 95% CI 2.66–3.36) and asthma (HR 2.07, 95% CI 1.86–2.31). Mediation analysis indicated that PhenoAgeAccel could mediate 10∼20% of the associations between smoking and chronic respiratory diseases, while ∼10% of the associations between particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter <2.5 µm and the disorders were mediated by PhenoAgeAccel. Conclusion PhenoAgeAccel was significantly associated with incident risk of common chronic respiratory diseases and decreased lung function and could serve as a novel clinical biomarker.