Nine blood biomarkers used to identify a “phenotypic age” was highly predictive of remaining life expectancy among both healthy and unhealthy populations independent of chronological age. However, the phenotypic age was better at predicting lifespan in younger people compared to older individuals.

Phenotypic age also increased as a function of diseases a person had, suggesting that phenotypic age can be different than chronological age based on these biomarkers.

The nine biomarkers included: albumin, creatinine, glucose, C-reactive protein, lymphocyte percent, mean cell volume, red blood cell distribution width, alkaline phosphatase, and white blood cell count.