The risks of biomarker-based epidemiology: Associations of circulating calcium levels with age, mortality, and frailty vary substantially across populations.

ABSTRACT: Recent studies have shown contradictory associations between calcium levels and health outcomes. We suspected these conflicting results were the consequence of more general issues with how biomarkers are analyzed in epidemiological studies, particularly in the context of aging. To demonstrate the risks of typical analyses, we used three longitudinal aging cohort studies and their demographic subsets to analyze how calcium levels change with age and predict risk of mortality and frailty. We show that calcium levels either increase or decrease with age depending on the population, and positively or negatively predict frailty depending on the population and analysis; both age and frailty results showed substantial heterogeneity. Mortality analyses revealed few significant associations but wer

SUBMITTER: Cohen AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5995116 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature