Table 3.

NCD risk factors-AA associations: Linear regression models with age acceleration (AA) as the outcome and NCD risk factors as the predictors adjusted by study area. For categorical variables (sex, smoking, physical activity, and alcohol), the effect sizes (β) are interpretable as years of increase/decrease epigenetic age compared with the reference group. For continuous variables (BMI and Mediterranean diet score), the effect sizes (β) are interpretable as years of increase/decrease epigenetic age for each unit increase of the predictor.

	Hannum intrinsic AA		Horvath intrinsic AA
	β (95% CI)	p	β (95% CI)	p
Sex+	−1.95 (−2.28, −1.62)	<0.0001	−1.76 (−2.12, −1.39)	<0.0001
BMI	0.09 (0.05, 0.13)	<0.0001	0.09 (0.05, 0.14)	<0.0001
Mediterranean diet score	−0.11 (−0.21, −0.01)	0.03	−0.07 (−0.18, 0.04)	0.24
Smoking++
Former	−0.63 (−1.10, −0.16)	0.01	−0.27 (−0.79, 0.25)	0.31
Never	−1.48 (−1.93, −1.03)	<0.0001	−1.32 (−1.82, −0.83)	<0.0001
Physical activity+++
Mod. inactive	0.03 (−0.45, 0.51)	0.90	0.05 (−0.48, 0.57)	0.86
Mod. active	0.14 (−0.32, 0.60)	0.55	−0.12 (−0.63, 0.39)	0.64
Active	0.11 (−0.40, 0.63)	0.67	0.17 (−0.39, 0.74)	0.55
Alcohol++++	0.76 (0.37, 1.15)	0.0001	0.73 (0.31, 1.16)	0.001

⁺Reference: Men.

⁺⁺Reference: Current smokers.

⁺⁺⁺Reference: Inactive.

⁺⁺⁺⁺Reference: No/moderate drinkers.

Chronological age is not associated with the intrinsic AA by definition.