Wearable-based accelerometer activity profile as digital biomarker of inflammation, biological age, and mortality using hierarchical clustering analysis in NHANES 2011–2014

Abstract

Repeated disruptions in circadian rhythms are associated with implications for health outcomes and longevity. The utilization of wearable devices in quantifying circadian rhythm to elucidate its connection to longevity, through continuously collected data remains largely unstudied. In this work, we investigate a data-driven segmentation of the 24-h accelerometer activity profiles from wearables as a novel digital biomarker for longevity in 7,297 U.S. adults from the 2011–2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Using hierarchical clustering, we identified five clusters and described them as follows: “High activity”, “Low activity”, “Mild circadian rhythm (CR) disruption”, “Severe CR disruption”, and “Very low activity”. Young adults with extreme CR disturbance are seemingly healthy with few comorbid conditions, but in fact associated with higher white blood cell, neutrophils, and lymphocyte counts (0.05–0.07 log-unit, all p < 0.05) and accelerated biological aging (1.42 years, p < 0.001). Older adults with CR disruption are significantly associated with increased systemic inflammation indexes (0.09–0.12 log-unit, all p < 0.05), biological aging advance (1.28 years, p = 0.021), and all-cause mortality risk (HR = 1.58, p = 0.042). Our findings highlight the importance of circadian alignment on longevity across all ages and suggest that data from wearable accelerometers can help in identifying at-risk populations and personalize treatments for healthier aging.

Circadian rhythm analysis using wearable-based accelerometry as a digital biomarker of aging and healthspan

“…Our results revealed that the influence of circadian acrophase on biological aging was more pronounced in younger individuals, suggesting a plausible link between circadian misalignment or disruption and the adverse health implications associated with the aging process. This aligns with recent research, which has shown that young adults with circadian disturbance were seemingly healthy with no comorbid conditions but in fact, exhibited elevated inflammation and accelerated biological aging 18 .…”

“…Studies consistently show that prolonged and repeated circadian disruption ultimately increases mortality risk and shortens longevity 16 . More recent work unveils that disrupted CR is additionally associated with decreased healthspan and advanced biological aging as estimated through blood biomarkers, underscoring the significant role of CR in healthy longevity as well as overall lifespan 17 , 18 .…”

Circadian Rhythm Analysis Using Wearable-Based Accelerometry as a Digital Biomarker of Aging and Healthspan

“…Based on the data quality metrics provided by the UKB accelerometer working group, we excluded n=19,079 participants with unreliable accelerometry data if any of the following conditions were met: flagged by the UKB as having data problem; insufficient wear time (<72 h of wear time or no wear data in each 1h period of the 24-hour cycle); unreliable or not well-calibrated data; and accelerometry data with a nonzero count of interrupted recording periods 30 . We further excluded participants with missing in any of the 5-minute epochs per day to ensure the continuous time series of accelerometry data over the course of 24-hours 18 .…”

“…Studies consistently show that prolonged and repeated circadian disruption ultimately increases mortality risk and shortens longevity [14][15][16] . More recent work unveils that disrupted CR is additionally associated with decreased healthspan and advanced biological aging as estimated through blood biomarkers, underscoring the significant role of CR in healthy longevity as well as overall lifespan 17,18 .…”

The Bitemporal Lens Model—toward a holistic approach to chronic disease prevention with digital biomarkers

“…7 For instance in primary prevention, wearable-device-measured physical activity profiles are associated with systemic inflammation, biological age, and all-cause mortality. 26 …”