PhenoAge (Levine Phenotypic Age)
blood-based method · published 2018 · measured from blood (serum/plasma, routine CBC + chemistry panel)
blood-based
open
Output: PhenoAge (years); Phenotypic Age Advancement (PhenoAge minus chronological age)
Facts
| Method type | blood-based |
|---|---|
| Published | 2018 |
| Sample type | blood (serum/plasma, routine CBC + chemistry panel) |
| Output | PhenoAge (years); Phenotypic Age Advancement (PhenoAge minus chronological age) |
| Validated population | NHANES III (training) and NHANES IV / NHANES 1999-2010 (validation), US adults |
| Open or commercial | open |
| Formula publicly available | Yes — Levine et al. 2018, Aging (Albany NY), supplementary formula (Gompertz proportional hazards coefficients) |
Required inputs
- Albumin (g/dL)
- Creatinine (mg/dL)
- Glucose (mg/dL)
- C-reactive protein (mg/L)
- Lymphocyte percent (%)
- Mean cell volume, MCV (fL)
- Red cell distribution width, RDW (%)
- Alkaline phosphatase (U/L)
- White blood cell count (1000 cells/uL)
- Chronological age (years)
Original publication
Levine ME, Lu AT, Quach A, et al. An epigenetic biomarker of aging for lifespan and healthspan. Aging (Albany NY). 2018;10(4):573-591.
DOI: 10.18632/aging.101414 · PMID: 29676998
Limitations
- Coefficients were derived from US NHANES populations; generalizability outside those populations is not established by the original study.
- PhenoAge is a Gompertz mortality-risk model fitted to nine clinical biomarkers and chronological age, not a direct biological measurement of aging.
- Results are sensitive to laboratory methods, reference ranges and the exact units entered.
- Clinical PhenoAge is distinct from DNAm PhenoAge, an epigenetic clock trained to predict the phenotypic score from blood DNA methylation.