News Finding: "But either way, mitochondrial DNA could be a very useful biomarker in the field of aging."
Paper Finding: Furthermore, this association was not driven by any single component of the frailty phenotype, with three out of five frailty characteristics showing statistically significant association with lower mtDNA copy number in whites (Fig.
News Context: The investigators say their findings contribute to the scientific understanding of aging and may lead to a test that could help identify at-risk individuals whose physical fitness can be improved with drugs or lifestyle changes. "But either way, mitochondrial DNA could be a very useful biomarker in the field of aging." On average, Arking says, subjects who met the criteria for frailty had 9 percent less mtDNA than nonfrail participants.
Paper Context: In a race-stratified analysis of samples from CHS, we observed a statistically significant association between lower mtDNA copy number and frailty, adjusted for age and sex, in whites (OR 0.91, 95 % CI 0.85-0.97, P = 0.005). Furthermore, this association was not driven by any single component of the frailty phenotype, with three out of five frailty characteristics showing statistically significant association with lower mtDNA copy number in whites (Fig. 1) , and a similar trend of association for the remaining characteristics.