Perceived age is one of the indicators of biological age; it determines how old a person looks according to other people.

OBJECTIVE

To study the capacity of perceived age and determine its prognostic relevance for the population 55 years and older living in Moscow.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The study material was a part of the prospective study «Stress, Aging, and Health» (SAHR) conducted at the National Medical Research Center for Therapy and Preventive Medicine of the Ministry of Health of Russia from 2007 to 2011, which included 1876 participants. In the current study we used an indexed perceived age — the part of a linear regression model of perceived age on sex and chronological age adjusted for expert accuracy. A total 529 participants (316 men and 213 women) died during 12 years of study, among them 315 died from cardiovascular diseases (CVD), 195 deaths were not associated with CVD, and 129 died from cancer.

RESULTS

Among men, the perceived age was, on average 2.2 years below the chronological age; among women — on average 1.3 years higher. The indexed perceived age was significantly associated with manual labor occupation, as well as with the current smoking in men and stress in women. Only in men, the increase in this measure by 5 years increased the risk of death from all-causes by 12% (p=0.04) and the risk of death from CVD — by 15% (p=0.04).

CONCLUSION

The indexed perceived age is one of the markers representing accelerated ageing in the male population. The use of such an unusual marker to determine the risk of accelerated ageing may be useful for prognostic assessment of the health status of the population 55 years and older.