Age-related diseases can be linked by genetics

Seemingly unrelated diseases that typically begin at similar ages appear to have genetic similarities, according to a new study involving UCL researchers. In a research paper published in Nature Aging , the team reports using a novel approach to provide the first data-driven classification of multiple diseases obtained using human genetic and medical data freely available from the UK Biobank. Co-author Professor Linda Partridge (UCL Institute of Health Ageing and Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing) said: "Advancing age is the main risk for major diseases, including cancer, dementia, and cardiovascular disease. Understanding the molecular links between the ageing process and age-related diseases could allow them to be targeted with drugs to improve late-life health. "The striking finding from the study was that diseases with a similar age of onset were genetically more similar to each other than they were to diseases in the other three clusters." The researchers based at UCL and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) uses data from the UK Biobank to investigate the genetic associations of 116 diseases including cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases, anaemia, deep vein thrombosis, thyroid problems and depression. The researchers grouped these diseases based on their age of onset to define the relationship between disease incidence and age. This revealed genetic links between diseases with the same onset profile, suggesting that they may share a common cause.