Biological aging and exposure to physical and psychological stress

This project studies how psychological and psychological stress associate with biological aging at 
        cellular, organ and whole-organism levels. Psychological stress is assessed using information on 
 adverse life events and stressful experiences/self-reported stress. For physiological stress, we consider exposures, such as air pollutants and other known physiological stressors. We will consider biological aging based on epigenetic clocks, telomere length, composite biomarkers (e.g. PhenoAge, Pace of aging, Klemera-Doubal Age, Homeostatic dysregulation and proteomic and metabolomic clocks) and frailty scores. Methodological approaches will include observational analyses and causal inferences using Mendelian Randomization. We will also analyze whether the (potential) effect of psychological and physiological stress on all-cause mortality is mediated through accelerated biological aging. Traditional risk factors (smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity,  socioeconomic status and suchlike variables etc.) as well as polygenic risk scores of common aging traits will be used as covariates/effect modifiers.