Effects of walking on epigenetic age acceleration: a Mendelian randomization study

Abstract

Introduction

Walking stands as the most prevalent physical activity in the daily lives of individuals and is closely associated with physical functioning and the aging process. Nonetheless, the precise cause-and-effect connection between walking and aging remains unexplored. The epigenetic clock emerges as the most promising biological indicator of aging, capable of mirroring the biological age of the human body and facilitating an investigation into the association between walking and aging. Our primary objective is to investigate the causal impact of walking with epigenetic age acceleration (EAA).

Methods

We conducted a two-sample two-way Mendelian randomization (MR) study to investigate the causal relationship between walking and EAA. Walking and Leisure sedentary behavior data were sourced from UK Biobank, while EAA data were gathered from a total of 28 cohorts. The MR analysis was carried out using several methods, including the inverse variance weighted (IVW), weighted median, MR-Egger, and robust adjusted profile score (RAPS). To ensure the robustness of our findings, we conducted sensitivity analyses, which involved the MR-Egger intercept test, Cochran’s Q test, and MR-PRESSO, to account for and mitigate potential pleiotropy.

Results

The IVW MR results indicate a significant impact of usual walking pace on GrimAge (BETA = − 1.84, 95% CI (− 2.94, − 0.75)), PhenoAge (BETA = − 1.57, 95% CI (− 3.05, − 0.08)), Horvath (BETA = − 1.09 (− 2.14, − 0.04)), and Hannum (BETA = − 1.63, 95% CI (− 2.70, − 0.56)). Usual walking pace is significantly associated with a delay in epigenetic aging acceleration (EAA) ( P < 0.05). Moreover, the direction of effect predicted by the gene remained consistent across RAPS outcomes and sensitivity MR analyses. There is a lack of robust causal relationships between other walking conditions, such as walking duration and walking frequency, on EAA ( P > 0.05).

Conclusion

Our evidence demonstrates that a higher usual walking pace is associated with a deceleration of the acceleration of all four classical epigenetic clocks acceleration.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13148-024-01707-w.

Key messages

• In recent years, observational studies have found that there is a correlation between walking and aging, but the specific relationship is not clear

• We used a Mendelian randomization approach to test the causal effect of walking and sedentarism on epigenetic clock acceleration

• Mendelian randomization studies have found that faster walking speed may delay physiological aging through causal analysis at the genetic level

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13148-024-01707-w.