Wearable-based accelerometer activity profile as digital biomarker of inflammation, biological age, and mortality using hierarchical clustering analysis in NHANES 2011-2014

Repeated disruptions in circadian rhythms are associated with implications for health outcomes and longevity. The utilization of wearable devices in quantifying circadian rhythm to elucidate its connection to longevity, through continuously collected data remains largely unstudied. In this work, we investigate a data-driven segmentation of the 24-h accelerometer activity profiles from wearables as a novel digital biomarker for longevity in 7,297 U.S. adults from the 2011-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Using hierarchical clustering, we identified five clusters and described them as follows: High activity, Low activity, Mild circadian rhythm (CR) disruption, Severe CR disruption, and Very low activity. Young adults with extreme CR disturbance are seemingly healthy with few comorbid conditions, but in fact associated with higher white blood cell, neutrophils, and lymphocyte counts (0.05-0.07 log-unit, all p < 0.05) and accelerated biological aging (1.42 years, p < 0.001). Older adults with CR disruption are significantly associated with increased systemic inflammation indexes (0.09-0.12 log-unit, all p < 0.05), biological aging advance (1.28 years, p = 0.021), and all-cause mortality risk (HR = 1.58, p = 0.042). Our findings highlight the importance of circadian alignment on longevity across all ages and suggest that data from wearable accelerometers can help in identifying at-risk populations and personalize treatments for healthier aging.

Automated summary

Repeated disruptions in circadian rhythms are associated with implications for health outcomes and longevity. The use of wearable devices to quantify circadian rhythms and their connection to longevity through continuous data collection is lacking research. By analyzing data from 7,297 U.S. adults from the 2011-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, we identified five categories based on 24-hour accelerometer activity profiles: High activity, Low activity, Mild circadian rhythm disruption, Severe circadian rhythm disruption, and Very low activity. Our findings suggest that circadian alignment is important for longevity across all ages, and data from wearable accelerometers can help identify at-risk populations and personalize treatments for healthier aging.