Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 21, 2026

Measuring Frailty in HIV-infected Individuals. Identification of Frail Patients is the First Step to Amelioration and Reversal of Frailty
Published on: July 24, 2013
The Frailty Index in centenarians and their offspring
Beatrice Arosio1,2, E Ferri3, M Casati3
1Geriatric Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, University of Milan, Via Pace 9, 20122, Milan, Italy. beatrice.arosio@unimi.it.
Abstract:
Frailty has been indicated as a way for capturing biological aging of the individual and Frailty Index (FI) may serve for this purpose. This study designed the FI in a cohort of centenarians, their offspring and control subjects sex- and age-matched with offspring. The FI mean value was 0.47 (SD 0.13) in centenarians, 0.15 (SD 0.12) in their offspring, and 0.22 (SD 0.14) in controls (p < 0.001). The difference between offspring and controls was statistically significant (p = 0.003). The correlation between FI and age was significant in offspring (r = 0.46, p < 0.001), close to significance in controls (r = 0.25, p = 0.08) and not significant in centenarians. Our study confirms that FI is a marker of biological age useful to discriminate different degrees of frailty even at extremely advanced age.
Related Concept Videos
Altruism
What is a Species?
Genomic Imprinting and Inheritance
The expression of some genes depends on which parent passed the gene to the offspring, through a phenomenon known as...
Speciation Rates
Imprinting
Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms

