Relationship between an ageing measure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung function: a cross-sectional study of NHANES, 2007-2010

Abstract

Objectives: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a disease associated with ageing. However, actual age does not accurately reflect the degree of biological ageing. Phenotypic age (PhenoAge) is a new indicator of biological ageing, and phenotypic age minus actual age is known as phenotypic age acceleration (PhenoAgeAccel). This research aimed to analyse the relationship between PhenoAgeAccel and lung function and COPD.

Design: A cross-sectional study.

Participants: Data for the study were obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007-2010. We defined people with forced expiratory volume in 1 s/forced vital capacity <0.70 after inhaled bronchodilators as COPD and the rest of the population as non-COPD. Adults aged 40 years or older were enrolled in the study.

Primary and secondary outcome measures: Linear and logistic regression were used to investigate the relationship between PhenoAgeAccel, lung function and COPD. Subgroup analysis was performed by gender, age, ethnicity and smoking index COPD. In addition, we analysed the relationship between the smoking index, respiratory symptoms and PhenoAgeAccel. Multiple models were used to reduce confounding bias.

Results: 5397 participants were included in our study, of which 1042 had COPD. Compared with PhenoAgeAccel Quartile1, Quartile 4 had a 52% higher probability of COPD; elevated PhenoAgeAccel was also significantly associated with reduced lung function. Further subgroup analysis showed that high levels of PhenoAgeAccel had a more significant effect on lung function in COPD, older adults and whites (P for interaction <0.05). Respiratory symptoms and a high smoking index were related to higher indicators of ageing.

Conclusions: Our study found that accelerated ageing is associated with the development of COPD and impaired lung function. Smoking cessation and anti-ageing therapy have potential significance in COPD.

Keywords: aging; respiratory medicine (see thoracic medicine); thoracic medicine.

Figure 1

Flow chart of the study. FEV1, forced expiratory volume in 1 s; FVC, forced vital capacity; NHANES, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

Figure 2

The calculation formula of PhenoAge and PhenoAgeAccel. CRP, C-reactive protein; PhenoAge, phenotype age; PhenoAgeAccel, phenotypic age acceleration.