Mechanisms of ageing and developmentJul 12, 2026

Biological Age and Mortality Risk Estimated from Common Blood Test Results

Longevity & Aging Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Jul 14, 2026

Abstract

The Blood-Biochemistry Age Clock (BBAC) achieved a lower Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) of 154165.7 compared to PhenoAge at 155217.6 for univariate all-cause mortality prediction.

BBAC is based on 11 routine blood biomarkers and transforms their levels into biological age.
In univariate analyses, BBAC outperformed PhenoAge in predicting all-cause mortality and disease incidence.
In multivariate analyses, PhenoAge showed better performance in predicting all-cause mortality than the initial BBAC, but the optimized BBAC performed better than PhenoAge.
On the NHANES dataset, BBAC and PhenoAge had similar performance, while PCAge and LinAge demonstrated the highest prediction power for mortality.
BBAC is noted for its explainability and interpretability as an aging clock.

Simplified

"Omic" aging clocks(ACs) represent an established predictor of biological-age(BA)/all-cause-mortality(ACM); however, they are expensive and lack interpretability/explainability. We developed a Blood-Biochemistry Age Clock(BBAC) composed of 11 routine blood biomarkers. The AC functions by transforming the individual's levels of blood biomarkers to years added/subtracted according to "biomarker-ACM risk-profile". The BBAC and PhenoAge were calculated for individuals of the UKB cohort and the results were associated with ACM and disease incidence(eight common chronic diseases) using univariant/multivariate Cox mortality analysis. The BBAC calculation procedure was further optimised. Mortality analysis was likewise performed on NHANES dataset with additional ACs(PCAge/LinAge) serving as predictors. Comparisons between ACs were done using Akaike Information Criterion(AIC). In univariate ACM prediction on UKB cohort BBAC outperformed PhenoAge(AIC= 910749.6 vs. 912914.9). Similarly, BBAC was a better univariate disease incidence predictor(lower AIC). In multivariate ACM prediction PhenoAge exceeded BBAC(AIC= 890855.6 vs. 893294.4). Nevertheless, the optimized version of BBAC was better in predicting ACM in uni(BBAC/PhenoAge AIC= 154165.7/155217.6) as well as in multivariant setting(BBAC/PhenoAge AIC= 151006.9/151031.9). For multivariant disease incidence prediction the results were mixed. On the NHANES cohort BBAC and PhenoAge performed similarly, while PCAge and LinAge achieved the best mortality prediction power. BBAC is an explainable/interpretable AC with good ACM prediction ability.

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Competing interests

Competing Interests J.Š., L.D., M.Č., D.M., S.T., E.K., A.B.M. and F.C. are employees of NU B.V. and may hold shares and stock options in the company. Author(s) J.Š, L.D., E.K., F.C. have filed a patent application related to the subject matter of this manuscript.”

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Biological Age and Mortality Risk Estimated from Common Blood Test Results

Abstract

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