Blood samples from 17,000 “healthy” people were taken and their health status followed for over 5 years. Of those who had died – of a variety of diseases – they found 4 biomarkers to be consistent throughout.
They are albumin, alpha-1 acid glycoprotein, citrate, and the size of the VLDL particles. All of these molecules are normally present in the blood, it is the amounts that are important.
“They seem to be signs of a general frailty in the body. Next we aim to study whether some kind of connecting factor between these biomarkers can be identified,” says Dr. Johannes Kettunen.
These are early days for this kind of biomarker, though I would think that combined with a telomere analysis and a stem cell analysis we might have a great early warning system in place.