Tier 3 — preclinical

An Expert Consensus Statement on Biomarkers of Aging for Use in Intervention Studies

Perri G, French C, Agostinis-Sobrinho C, Anand A, Antarianto RD, Arai Y, Baur JA, Cauli O, Clivaz-Duc M, Colloca G, Demetriades C, de Lucia C, Di Gessa G, Diniz BS, Dotchin CL, Eaglestone G, Elliott BT, Espeland MA, Ferrucci L, Madeo F, Maier AB, Mathers JC, Moskalev A, Phillips SM, Scott D, Sillanpää E, Korolchuk VI, Shannon OM
The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences 2025 Volume 80, issue 5, article glae297

Bibliography

PubMed
PMID 39708300
DOI
10.1093/gerona/glae297
Funding
Supported by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)-funded AGEing and Nutrient Sensing (AGENTS) Network, UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and Medical Research Council (MRC). The study team was brought together through AGENTS Network meetings. Additional panel-member support included NHMRC Australia Investigator Grant GNT1174886; Maria Zambrano Fellowship/NextGenerationEU; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology CEECINST/00093/2021; Spanish Ministry of Universities/Postdoctoral Margarita Salas funding; and Xunta de Galicia fellowship ED481B-2024-077.
Competing interests
Disclosed conflicts included: J.A. Baur—research funding/materials and consulting relationships with multiple biotechnology/pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Calico, Elysium Health and Metro International Biotech; M. Espeland—NIH/Alzheimer's Association funding and consulting for Nestlé and Annovis Bio; W.J. Hastings—Bayer Healthcare consultant; P.K. Joshi—Humanity Inc. consultant/share options and founder of Geromica; D.W. Lamming—funding from and scientific advisory role at Aeovian Pharmaceuticals; F. Madeo—equity in TLL The Longevity Labs and Samsara Therapeutics; A.B. Maier—cofounder of Chi Longevity and CMO of NU; S.M. Phillips—commercial support/fees and patents involving Exerkine and Nestlé Health Sciences; D. Scott—honoraria from Pfizer, Amgen and Abbott Nutrition; S. Shyam—consulting fees from Abbott Laboratories; Z. Hassan-Smith—speaker fees/honoraria from several pharmaceutical companies and professional editorial/committee roles. The article states that the other authors had no conflict to declare.

Study snapshot

DesignThree-round international Delphi expert-consensus study conducted online.
ModelInternational expert panel evaluating candidate biomarkers of aging for use as outcomes in human intervention studies.
Sample460 experts were invited; 116 completed Round 1, 87 completed Round 2, and 60 completed Round 3.
InterventionNo clinical intervention. Experts proposed and voted on candidate biomarkers and 500 initial statements using a prespecified ≥70% consensus threshold.
DurationThree iterative Delphi rounds; article received August 12, 2024, editorial decision December 14, 2024, and first published December 21, 2024.
EndpointsConsensus status for candidate biomarkers of aging; Agreement on biomarker suitability for intervention-study durations and settings; Precision, reliability, sensitivity and specificity; Participant/researcher/analyst blinding feasibility; Burden, invasiveness and financial cost; Final set of recommended biomarkers

What the study showed, in plain terms

Every longevity brand that reports a result has to choose what to measure. There is no regulator-approved endpoint for ageing, so in practice each company picks its own — a methylation clock, an NAD level, a vascular measure, a self-reported wellbeing score — and the reader is left unable to compare one product's evidence against another's.

This 2025 consensus statement, assembled from 76 ageing researchers across more than twenty countries and published in the Journals of Gerontology, is the field's attempt to fix exactly that. It sets out which biomarkers the expert community considers appropriate to use as endpoints in human intervention studies, and on what methodological terms.

For anyone reading supplement research, it functions as a yardstick. A finished-product trial that selects its endpoints in line with this consensus is doing something meaningfully harder than one that reports whichever measure happened to move. It is also a reminder that the field has not yet agreed on a single validated endpoint — which is precisely why phrases like clinically proven remain unsupportable in this category.

Key findings

  • A large multinational expert panel sets out consensus guidance on which biomarkers of ageing are appropriate as endpoints in human intervention studies.
  • The existence of the statement is itself the headline finding for consumers: as of 2025 the field required a formal consensus exercise because no single validated ageing endpoint existed.
  • Endpoint selection is treated as a methodological decision requiring justification, not a free choice — which is the standard against which sponsor-published supplement reports should be read.

What this study can and cannot tell us

A consensus statement is structured expert opinion. It carries the authority of the panel and the review process of the journal, but it generates no primary data and cannot validate a biomarker against a hard clinical outcome.

Consensus positions move. This statement reflects the field as of its December 2024 editorial decision and should be re-checked against later guidance before being used to adjudicate a specific claim.

Individual conflict-of-interest declarations for 76 contributors are held in the article's back matter rather than summarised here, and several panel members have commercial relationships in the longevity sector.

Editorial review

Reviewed by the Biohack Blueprint research team

Last verified

Dr. Khaled Mahmoud, MBBChCritical Care Medicine, Longevity Science & Editorial Direction Dr. Amr Yasser, PhDCardiometabolic, Musculoskeletal, Gut & Bioavailability Dr. Abdulla Mostafa, PhDCellular Senescence, Neurological, Mitochondrial & Brain-Ageing Biology