Corrigendum: Pleiotropic Meta-Analyses of Longitudinal Studies Discover Novel Genetic Variants Associated with Age-Related Diseases.

[This corrects the article on p. 179 in vol. 7, PMID: 27790247.

Pure and Confounded Effects of Causal SNPs on Longevity: Insights for Proper Interpretation of Research Findings in GWAS of Populations with Different Genetic Structures.

This paper shows that the effects of causal SNPs on lifespan, estimated through GWAS, may be confounded and the genetic structure of the study population may be responsible for this effect. Simulation experiments show that levels of linkage disequilibrium (LD) and other parameters of the population structure describing connections between two causal SNPs may substantially influence separate estimates of the effect of the causal SNPs on lifespan. This study suggests that differences in LD levels between two causal SNP loci within two study populations may contribute to the failure to replicate previous GWAS findings.

Pleiotropic Meta-Analyses of Longitudinal Studies Discover Novel Genetic Variants Associated with Age-Related Diseases.

Age-related diseases may result from shared biological mechanisms in intrinsic processes of aging. Genetic effects on age-related diseases are often modulated by environmental factors due to their little contribution to fitness or are mediated through certain endophenotypes. Identification of genetic variants with pleiotropic effects on both common complex diseases and endophenotypes may reveal potential conflicting evolutionary pressures and deliver new insights into shared genetic contribution to healthspan and lifespan.

How Genes Modulate Patterns of Aging-Related Changes on the Way to 100: Biodemographic Models and Methods in Genetic Analyses of Longitudinal Data.

Background And Objective: To clarify mechanisms of genetic regulation of human aging and longevity traits, a number of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of these traits have been performed. However, the results of these analyses did not meet expectations of the researchers. Most detected genetic associations have not reached a genome-wide level of statistical significance, and suffered from the lack of replication in the studies of independent populations.

Cumulative deficits better characterize susceptibility to death in elderly people than phenotypic frailty: lessons from the Cardiovascular Health Study.

Objectives: To compare how well frailty measures based on a phenotypic frailty approach proposed in the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) and a cumulative deficits approach predict mortality.

Design: Cohort study.

Setting: The main cohort of the CHS.

An inverse association between self-reported arthritis and mortality in the elderly: findings from the national long-term care survey.

Major musculoskeletal conditions including arthritis represent an increasing burden on individuals and societies. We analyzed the association between self-reported arthritis and mortality in the U.S.

Body mass index and nine-year mortality in disabled and nondisabled older U.S. individuals.

Objectives: To investigate the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and 9-year mortality in older (> or = 65) Americans with and without disability.

Design: Cohort study.

Setting: The unique disability-focused National Long Term Care Survey (NLTCS) data that assessed the health and well-being of older individuals in 1994 were analyzed.