Slowed epigenetic aging in Olympic champions compared to non-champions

The lifestyle patterns of top athletes are highly disciplined, featuring strict exercise regimens, nutrition plans, and mental preparation, often beginning at a young age. Recently, it was shown that physically active individuals exhibit slowed epigenetic aging and better age-related outcomes. Here, we investigate whether the extreme intensity of physical activity of Olympic champions still has a beneficial effect on epigenetic aging. To test this hypothesis, we examined the epigenetic aging of 59 Hungarian Olympic champions and of the 332 control subjects, 205 were master rowers. We observed that Olympic champions exhibit slower epigenetic aging, applying seven state-of-the-art epigenetic aging clocks. Additionally, male champions who won any medal within the last 10 years showed slower epigenetic aging compared to other male champions, while female champions exhibited the opposite trend. We also found that wrestlers had higher age acceleration compared to gymnasts, fencers, and water polo players. We identified the top 20 genes that showed the most remarkable difference in promoter methylation between Olympic champions and non-champions. The hypo-methylated genes are involved in synaptic health, glycosylation, metal ion membrane transfer, and force generation. Most of the hyper-methylated genes were associated with cancer promotion. The data suggest that rigorous and long-term exercise from adolescence to adulthood has beneficial effects on epigenetic aging. In this study, we analyzed four methylation batches (we referred to them as MET2019, MET2020, MET2022, and MET2023). MET2019 batch contained 263 control samples, MET2020 batch contained 33 control and 59 Olympic champion samples and the MET2023 batch contained also 33 control samples. The MET2019 and MET2020 batches were measured by the Infinium MethylationEPIC (850 k) BeadChip and the MET2023 batch was measured by the Infinium MethylationEPIC v2.0 BeadChip. For our analysis, we converted the CpG sites in the MET2023 batch back to the EPIC v1 array format and merged all four batches. Due to patient privacy concerns, raw data idat files could not be provided. ***Due to patient privacy concerns, raw data idat files could not be provided*** Methylation array gene mapping file: olympic_gmap.csv.gz