Epigenetic aging during the COVID-19 pandemic: A prospective longitudinal study with prepandemic baseline data in children, adolescents, and adults.

Psychosocial stress is a risk factor for aging-related diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic placed a psychosocial burden on individuals, potentially increasing the risk for aging-related diseases for which epigenetic clocks are used as early biomarkers. Based on four epigenetic clocks (DunedinPACE, GrimAge2, Horvath, and PedBE), we investigated whether epigenetic aging changed during the pandemic and whether these changes were associated with objective and subjective pandemic-related stressors and preexisting individual risk factors for poorer physical and mental health. We used prospective longitu