Research Paper Volume 11, Issue 18 pp 7694—7706
Circulating glucuronic acid predicts healthspan and longevity in humans and mice
- 1 BIOAGE, Richmond, CA 94804, USA
- 2 Estonian Genome Center, University of Tartu, Tartu 51010, Estonia
- 3 Institute of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Tartu, Tartu 50409, Estonia
- 4 Department of Twin Research, Kings College London, London SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
Received: August 7, 2019 Accepted: September 7, 2019 Published: September 26, 2019
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102281How to Cite
Copyright © 2019 Ho et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Glucuronic acid is a metabolite of glucose that is involved in the detoxification of xenobiotic compounds and the structure/remodeling of the extracellular matrix. We report for the first time that circulating glucuronic acid is a robust biomarker of mortality that is conserved across species. We find that glucuronic acid levels are significant predictors of all-cause mortality in three population-based cohorts from different countries with 4-20 years of follow-up (HR=1.44, p=2.9×10-6 in the discovery cohort; HR=1.13, p=0.032 and HR=1.25, p=0.017, respectively in the replication cohorts), as well as in a longitudinal study of genetically heterogenous mice (HR=1.29, p=0.018). Additionally, we find that glucuronic acid levels increase with age and predict future healthspan-related outcomes. Together, these results demonstrate glucuronic acid as a robust biomarker of longevity and healthspan.