Pain Research & Intervention Center of Excellence, 3463University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Institute on Aging, 3463University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Mol Pain. 2022 Apr;18:17448069221118004. doi: 10.1177/17448069221118004.
Gerontological research reveals considerable interindividual variability in aging phenotypes, and emerging evidence suggests that high impact chronic pain may be associated with various accelerated biological aging processes. In particular, epigenetic aging is a robust predictor of health-span and disability compared to chronological age alone. The current study aimed to determine whether several epigenetic aging biomarkers were associated with high impact chronic pain in middle to older age adults (44-78 years old). Participants ( = 213) underwent a blood draw, demographic, psychosocial, pain and functional assessments. We estimated five epigenetic clocks and calculated the difference between epigenetic age and chronological age, which has been previously reported to predict overall mortality risk, as well as included additional derived variables of epigenetic age previously associated with pain. There were significant differences across Pain Impact groups in three out of the five epigenetic clocks examined (DNAmAge, DNAmPhenoAge and DNAmGrimAge), indicating that pain-related disability during the past 6 months was associated with markers of epigenetic aging. Only DNAmPhenoAge and DNAmGrimAge were associated with higher knee pain intensity during the past 48 h. Finally, pain catastrophizing, depressive symptomatology and more neuropathic pain symptoms were significantly associated with an older epigenome in only one of the five epigenetic clocks (i.e. DNAmGrimAge) after correcting for multiple comparisons (corrected 's < 0.05). Given the scant literature in relation to epigenetic aging and the complex experience of pain, additional research is needed to understand whether epigenetic aging may help identify people with chronic pain at greater risk of functional decline and poorer health outcomes.
老年学研究揭示了衰老表型在个体间存在相当大的差异，新出现的证据表明，高影响慢性疼痛可能与各种加速的生物学衰老过程有关。特别是，与单纯的年龄相比，表观遗传衰老更能预测健康寿命和残疾。本研究旨在确定几种表观遗传衰老生物标志物是否与中年至老年成年人（44-78 岁）的高影响慢性疼痛有关。参与者（n=213）接受了血液采集、人口统计学、心理社会、疼痛和功能评估。我们估计了五个表观遗传时钟，并计算了表观遗传年龄与实际年龄之间的差异，这一差异以前被报道可以预测整体死亡率风险，并且包括了与疼痛相关的先前与疼痛相关的表观遗传年龄的其他衍生变量。在五个被检查的表观遗传时钟中，有三个在疼痛影响组之间存在显著差异（DNAmAge、DNAmPhenoAge 和 DNAmGrimAge），这表明过去 6 个月的疼痛相关残疾与表观遗传衰老的标志物有关。只有 DNAmPhenoAge 和 DNAmGrimAge 与过去 48 小时内更高的膝关节疼痛强度有关。最后，疼痛灾难化、抑郁症状和更多的神经病理性疼痛症状仅与五个表观遗传时钟中的一个（即 DNAmGrimAge）相关，在对多个比较进行校正后（校正后的's < 0.05）。鉴于与表观遗传衰老相关的文献很少，以及疼痛的复杂体验，需要进一步研究以了解表观遗传衰老是否可以帮助识别患有慢性疼痛且功能下降和健康状况较差风险更高的人群。
