Epigenetic age among US adults with chronic respiratory diseases: results from NHANES 1999-2002

Javier Perez-Garcia¹, Dennis Khodasevich², Sara De Matteis³, Mary B Rice^{4

5}, Belinda L Needham⁶, David H Rehkopf^{2

7

8

9

10}, Andres Cardenas^{2

8}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA jpegarci@stanford.edu.
² Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
³ Department of Health Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
⁴ Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁵ Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
⁷ Department of Medicine (Division of Primary Care and Population Health), Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁸ Department of Pediatrics, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁹ Department of Health Policy, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

PMID: 40441879
PMCID: PMC12177333
DOI: 10.1183/13993003.00293-2025

Epigenetic age among US adults with chronic respiratory diseases: results from NHANES 1999-2002

Javier Perez-Garcia et al. Eur Respir J. 2025.

. 2025 Jun 19;65(6):2500293.

doi: 10.1183/13993003.00293-2025. Print 2025 Jun.

Authors

Javier Perez-Garcia¹, Dennis Khodasevich², Sara De Matteis³, Mary B Rice^{4

5}, Belinda L Needham⁶, David H Rehkopf^{2

7

8

9

10}, Andres Cardenas^{2

8}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA jpegarci@stanford.edu.
² Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
³ Department of Health Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
⁴ Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁵ Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
⁷ Department of Medicine (Division of Primary Care and Population Health), Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁸ Department of Pediatrics, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁹ Department of Health Policy, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

PMID: 40441879
PMCID: PMC12177333
DOI: 10.1183/13993003.00293-2025

Abstract

An observational study in the large population-based NHANES survey shows accelerated epigenetic ageing in adults with wheezing and validates the association of COPD – particularly the emphysema subtype – and asthma with epigenetic ageing https://bit.ly/3SpNdHK

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: J. Perez-Garcia reports grants from the Spanish Ministry of Universities outside of this work. S. De Matteis reports leadership roles as chair of ERS Assembly 6.2, secretary of the EPICOH ICOH committee, and chair of the UK OEES committee. M.B. Rice reports grants from NIH, honoraria for research lectures, and leadership roles as chair of the ATS EOPH Assembly and chair of the ATS EOPH Program Committee. B.L. Needham reports grants from NIH (R01MD011721). A. Cardenas reports support for the present study from Stanford University faculty fund support and National Institutes of Health, and research grants R01ES031259 and P42ES004705 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NHANES). The remaining authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

**FIGURE 1**
Forest plot of the significant associations between epigenetic ageing biomarkers and chronic respiratory diseases. Epigenetic clocks included biomarkers predictive of chronological age (HorvathAge, HannumAge and SkinBloodAge), lifespan and health span (PhenoAge, GrimAgeMort and GrimAge2Mort), pace of ageing (DunedinPoAm), and telomere length as a replicative history of cells (HorvathTelo). Effect estimates and 95% confidence intervals are represented on the x-axis. Effect estimates for GrimAgeMort, GrimAge2Mort, HannumAge and PhenoAge are in years, for DunedinPoAm are in unit differences of the pace of ageing (a score of 1 represents an average ageing pace), and for HorvathTelo are in kilobases. Positive estimates indicate accelerated epigenetic ageing, except for HorvathTelo, since shorter telomere lengths indicate accelerated ageing. The vertical dashed line at zero represents no association. *: false discovery rate <0.05.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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1. Hernandez Cordero AI, Yang CX, Li X, et al. The blood DNA methylation clock GrimAge is a robust surrogate for airway epithelia aging. Biomedicines 2022; 10: 3094. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines10123094 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

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Epigenetic age among US adults with chronic respiratory diseases: results from NHANES 1999-2002

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Epigenetic age among US adults with chronic respiratory diseases: results from NHANES 1999-2002

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