A group of specialists from the Institute of Aging Biology of the Max Planck Society (Germany) developed a blood test that can determine the risks of death of a person in the next 10 years.
Through 14 different biomarkers, this test allows predicting with 83% accuracy if the person will stay alive or die in the next 5 to 10 years, as detailed in a document published in the journal Nature.
To do this, the researchers conducted a study in which more than 44,000 people between 18 and 109 years old participated, of which 5,512 died during a follow-up of two to 16 years in each of the patients.
As they report in the document, what they did was study the blood of 44,168 people. However, what they wanted was to determine the biological age, which depends on many health-related factors.
Taking that into account, the researchers verified the blood results. Thus, they determined the biomarkers that would give the information related to upcoming mortality.
Among the factors that seem to determine the risk of death are certain levels of “good” and “bad” amino acids and cholesterol, fatty acid imbalances, inflammation, general immune response and glucose control, reports a statement from the Max Planck Institute.
Although this represents an important step to know about people’s health, there is still a lot of time for the test to be used clinically.
Scientists now plan to test their results in subsequent studies and hope that their work will someday help introduce blood tests that help control the patient’s treatment.
