This study evaluates the role of three potential contributors to the pathogenesis of disability: inflammation, hormones, micronutrient deficiencies, singly, in combination, and in relation to existing diseases, impairments and frailty.
These questions are being addressed through analysis of already-collected data in the “Women’s Health and Aging Study” (WHAS I). WHAS I collected interview, physical examination and performance-based data on the one-third most disabled women living in the community; an ancillary study collected blood, analyzed many measures, and stored plasma and serum. These data are complemented by information obtained in a parallel investigation, WHAS II, “Risk Factors for Physical Disability in Aging Women,” which included the 2/3 least disabled women in the community.
This new study proposes to answer the following research aims using merged data sets that span the full spectrum of function in older women:
- to establish population norms and rates of change for pathogenic biomediators
- to determine the degree to which these biomarkers explain disability status
- to evaluate longitudinally the independent and interactive contributions of pathogenic biomediators to disability, over and above that of disease, and the potential role of frailty as a modifier of these relationships
- to develop screening nomograms for clinical identification of those at high risk of severe disability and assess potential impact of interventions needed to meaningfully delay such progression
- to produce a monograph based on WHAS results that describes evidence for a causal pathway to disability and its risk factors
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