'You are as frail as your arteries''exploring the correlation between frailty, and chronological and vascular age parameters.

Abstract

Introduction: Thomas Sydenham, English physician stated, 'a man is as old as his arteries'. Chronological age has been noted to correlate strongly with vascular/biological age. However, little is known about how chronological and vascular parameters of ageing, correlate with frailty. In this study, we sought to study the correlations between frailty, chronological age and parameters of vascular ageing. Method(s): Data from two studies with participants aged >=60 years investigating the associations between Cytomegalovirus infection and frailty indices and vascular parameters were included. Two hundred and sixty community dwelling adults were enrolled in both studies. Vascular parameters were measured by cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) using VaSera VS-2000- and pulse wave velocity-PWV (carotid-femoral and carotid-radial) using COMPLIOR-. Hand grip strength (HGS) and Charlson co-morbidity index (CCI) were measured for clinical frailty data. Patients were excluded if they had malignancy, were on active treatment for cancer or were unable to give consent. Result(s): There were 260 study participants, (mean age'}SD; 72'}8 years), with gender distribution M:F (50:50). Chronological age strongly correlated positively with vascular ageing parameters such as CAVI (r = 0.6, p<0.001) and cf-PWV (r = 0.5, p<0.01). Similarly, chronological age correlated positively with CCI (r = 0.7, p<0.001) and negatively with HGS (r =- 0.3, p<0.001). Vascular ageing as measured by CAVI (estimated CAVI age) correlated positively with CCI (r = 0.5, p<0.01) and negatively with HGS (r =-0.2, p = 0.01).Other measures of vascular ageing such as cf-PWV positively correlated with CCI (r = 0.4, p<0.01) and negatively with HGS (r =- 0.1, p = 0.09). Conclusion(s): Clinical frailty parameters correlate strongly with measures of vascular ageing and chronological age. Vascular ageing is a strong independent predictor of frailty.