MAGIC V1.0

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Multimorbidity and Ageing: Geroscience-Informed biological and Clinical phenotyping

• IRAS ID

  353309

• Contact name

  Zeinab Majid

• Contact email

  z.majid@bham.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Birmingham

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 8 months, 31 days

• Research summary

  Why and what?
  Advancements in medicine have led to increased life expectancy through improved treatment of different medical conditions such as cancer, heart disease, and infections. However, these improvements in lifespan have not been associated with increases in healthspan (the number of years spent in good health). We see some people live their older years in poorer health. However, people age in different ways; some people are more affected by ill health as they age, and others demonstrate ‘healthy’ ageing. We can sometimes see these differences in how older people recover from stress events such as operations or infections; some people recover well, some take longer to recover, and some never fully recover. When people do not recover well, we call this frailty. Dynamic resilience is when people recover well. We do not understand the biological processes between people who recover well, and those who do not. Advances in the biology of ageing means we can now test the processes associated with ageing and frailty.
  As people get older, they are also more likely to develop more medical conditions. Living with multiple long term condition (MLTC) is also known as multimorbidity. We know that MLTC is also associated with people becoming more frailty, and poorer health as they get older. Frailty itself also makes people vulnerable to developing more diseases. We have observed this relationship, but we do not fully understand the nature of this relationship. We believe the development of MLTC and frailty share the same underlying causes biologically. With this study, we aim to try and understand how people with MLTC age, and if these different ways of ageing have specific underlying biological causes, and to determine if these underlying causes are shared or not across different types of older people. Excitingly these different causes could be targeted in different ways to help each individual (with personalised medicine) to improve overall health and make it more likely they can recover from stress events such as surgery or infections.

  Who?
  We are looking to recruit 30 people aged 65 years and older who are living with multiple long term conditions, and 10 people aged 65 years and over who are healthy.
  
  Where?
  We will recruit people from one NHS trust: University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust

  How?
  We will invite people to join the study from different clinics taking place in the hospital. We will ask them to visit for half a day and do tests of physical function, brain function, ultrasound of their leg muscles and take a blood test. If suitable, some people will also be invited for an extra test a week later to take some muscle and/or fat samples; this will be an optional part of the study.
  People will be reviewed again at 6 months with a detailed follow up when we will repeat all our assessments to see if these have changed.
  

• REC name

  Wales REC 1

• REC reference

  25/WA/0102

• Date of REC Opinion

  22 May 2025

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion