VARIATIONS BY RACE, ETHNICITY AND SEX IN RELATIONS OF BEHAVIORAL FACTORS TO BIOLOGICAL AGING

Background: Public health guidance supports physical activity (PA), avoiding smoking, moderate drinking and maintenance of good mental health as beneficial for aging. However, little is known about whether relations of these factors to biological aging vary by race, ethnicity and/or sex. Methods: We included a sub-set of community-dwelling Latino, black, and non-Latino white US participants aged 50+ years (mean age=67 years) in a depression prevention ancillary study (VITAL-DEP) to the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL; n=25,874), a randomized trial of fish oil and vitamin D supplements for primary prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Before randomization blood samples and extensive health and behavioral variables, including PA, smoking, alcohol use and mood, were collected. Biomarkers were assayed from DNA extracted from whole blood and included: telomere length (n=792); mitochondrial DNA copy number (n=396); DNA methylation (n=23) (>850,000 CpG sites on the MethylationEPIC technology). Results: The biomarkers did not consistently show correlations with each other or agree regarding associations with behavioral/lifestyle factors. Significant differences by race, ethnicity and sex were found in relations of PA, smoking and alcohol use to biomarkers: e.g., females (particularly black females) vs. males had stronger smoking-telomere shortening associations (p-interaction=0.03). Conclusion: We observed novel variations by race, ethnicity and sex for key behavioral and lifestyle factors with respect to aging biomarkers. If confirmed, these results could have implications for public health recommendations regarding optimization of health behaviors among older adults, especially if they indicate that modifiable behaviors differentially influence biological aging outcomes within sub-sets of the population.