ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1535524
This article is part of the Research TopicBiological Markers of Healthy AgingView all 5 articles
Association of marital status with DNA methylation based biological age among US older adults
Provisionally accepted
- School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
DNA methylation (DNAm) algorithms, such as GrimAge and GrimAge2, have emerged as reliable measures of biological age acceleration and may offer additional insights into health outcomes. While previous research has explored the relationship between marital status and mortality, its association with accelerated biological aging remains understudied. This study aimed to examine the relationship between marital status and DNAm-based biological age acceleration in older adults.Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were used to assess GrimAge and GrimAge2 in 2,420 U.S. adults aged 50 and older. DNAm profiles were measured using the Infinium Methylation EPIC BeadChip kit (Illumina).Linear regression models, adjusted for potential confounders, were used to estimate associations between marital status and DNAm-based biological age acceleration.Significant associations were observed between marital status and biological age acceleration. After adjusting for potential confounders, never-married males had significantly higher GrimAge2Acc (β = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.17-1.73) and GrimAgeAcc (β = 0.88, 95% CI: 0.28-1.47) scores compared to married males. Additionally, widowed females exhibited significantly higher GrimAge2Acc (β = 0.43, 95% CI: 0.02-0.85) compared to their married counterparts.This study highlights the significant role of marital status in biological aging, particularly for men. Never-married status may be linked to higher risks of biological aging, highlighting the need for social and environmental interventions that promote healthier lifestyles and emotional support for older adults, especially those without partners. These findings underscore the importance of addressing social determinants of health to mitigate the adverse effects of marital status on biological aging and overall health outcomes.
Keywords: Marital Status, DNA Methylation, epigenetic clock, Biological Age Acceleration, Public Health
Received: 09 Jan 2025; Accepted: 19 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xiangwei, Cui, Xu, Zhang and Ding. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Li Xiangwei, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.