{"doi":"10.1101/2024.08.07.24311629","title":"Associations of Serum GDF-15 Levels with Physical Performance, Mobility Disability, Cognition, Cardiovascular Disease, and Mortality in Older Adults","abstract":"Background: Growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15) is a member of the TGFβ superfamily secreted by many cell types and found at higher blood concentrations as chronological age increases (1). Given the emergence of GDF-15 as a key protein associated with aging, it is important to understand the multitude of conditions with which circulating GDF-15 is associated. Methods: We pooled data from 1,174 randomly selected Health ABC Study (Health ABC) participants and 1,503 Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) participants to evaluate the risk of various conditions and age-related outcomes across levels of GDF-15. The primary outcomes were (1) risk of mobility disability and falls; (2) impaired cognitive function; (3) and increased risk of cardiovascular disease and total mortality. Results: The pooled study cohort had a mean age of 75.4 +/-4.4 years. Using a Bonferroni-corrected threshold, our analyses show that high levels of GDF-15 were associated with a higher risk of severe mobility disability (HR: 2.13 [1.64, 2.77]), coronary heart disease (HR: 1.47 [1.17, 1.83]), atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (HR: 1.56 [1.22, 1.98]), heart failure (HR: 2.09 [1.66, 2.64]), and mortality (HR: 1.81 [1.53, 2.15]) when comparing the highest and lowest quartiles. For CHS participants, analysis of extreme quartiles in fully adjusted models revealed a 3.5-fold higher risk of dementia (HR: 3.50 [1.97, 6.22]). Conclusions: GDF-15 is associated with several age-related outcomes and diseases, including mobility disability, impaired physical and cognitive performance, dementia, cardiovascular disease, and mortality. Each of these findings demonstrates the importance of GDF-15 as a potential biomarker for many aging-related conditions.","journal":"medRxiv","year":2024,"id":484920,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":7,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9601,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":669124,"name":"Sheena Patel","orcid":"0000-0002-0865-4266","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":246786,"name":"Jorge R. Kizer","orcid":"0000-0001-9936-7803","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":315519,"name":"Richard Eastell","orcid":"0000-0002-0323-3366","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":17625,"name":"Bruce M. Psaty","orcid":"0000-0002-7278-2190","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":57360,"name":"Anne B. Newman","orcid":"0000-0002-0106-1150","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":74871,"name":"Steven R. Cummings","orcid":"0000-0001-8808-260X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":574704,"name":"Katey Webber","orcid":"0000-0001-6723-394X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":33,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:07:47.633574Z","pmid":"39148825","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}