Fig. 3

Distribution of healthy ageing gene score in ULSAM samples and its relation with clinical parameters. At the date of assessment (1992), when the muscle biopsy was taken for subsequent gene-chip profiling, all subjects were considered in reasonable health for their age and remained physically active. a Distribution of gene score based on the median rank for each of the 150 genes (see “Materials and methods”). b Clinical variables were determined as previously reported for ULSAM samples (chronological age = 69–70 years) [71, 101]. Linear regression was used to examine the relationship between the healthy ageing gene score at ~70 years and a variety of clinical parameters at age ~70 years. No relationship between baseline gene score and renal function (estimated from cystatin C, r2 < 0.001), systolic blood pressure (mmHg, r2 = 0.0013), 2 h glucose concentration following a standard oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT; mmol, r2 = 0.015) or total cholesterol (mmol, r2 = 0.002) was observed. Gene score was also unrelated to resting heart rate or physical activity questionnaire, and thus habitual exercise status. In fact the healthy ageing gene score was not correlated with any conventional risk factors (as listed in Additional file 2)