The effect of age on serum albumin in healthy males: report from the Normative Aging Study.

To clarify the relation between age and serum albumin, measures were obtained on a screened population of 1066 healthy males in the Normative Aging Study. Multiple regression analysis shows only a slight decline in albumin of 0.054 gm/dl per decade with R = -0.12 (p less than .001) on cross-sectional data. This small decline occurs entirely within the range of normal, contrary to many previous reports. Mean albumin values were 4.25 (+/- .26 SD) for subjects in the eighth decade and 4.13 (+/- .29 SD) in the ninth decade. Longitudinally, there was an upwards trend in albumin for five birth cohorts over an 8-yr period which may reflect laboratory drift. A multivariate model of cross-sectional data can explain only 5% of the variance. The age-related decline within healthy subjects is far less than previously described. Our data demonstrate that hypoalbuminemia is not a consequence of normal aging.