Longitudinal Healthspan Data

In order to assess healthspan, we performed a series of longitudinal, clinically-relevant healthspan measurements developed by Howlett and her colleagues. This frailty index (FI) consists of 31 phenotypes that are indicators of age-associated health deterioration, with each phenotype scored on a 0, 0.5 or 1 scale, based on its severity. All scorings were conducted in a blinded manner. The 31-metrics share many characteristics of human frailty indices and have been reported to progress similarly with aging in when compared with the well-established Rockwood frailty scale for humans. Measurements were repeated approximately every eight weeks, providing us with eight and seven sets of data respectively for male and female groups. The total frailty score, which is the average of 31 frailty phenotypes, was calculated for each animal at every time point .