Active commuting and biological aging: Cross-sectional evidence from the UK Biobank

Objective To investigate whether commuting mode is associated with biological aging, including KDM 's Biological Age Acceleration (KDM-BAA), PhenoAge Acceleration (PhenoAA) and leukocyte telomere length (LTL) based on the UK Biobank (UKB). Methods We performed a cross-sectional study of 225,018 UKB participants recruited 2006–2010. Commuting mode was categorized into non-active, walking only, mixed mode walking, cycling, and mixed mode cycling. The sign of LTL was reversed, then the three biological aging biomarkers were standardized and dichotomized according to whether the standardized value was greater than 0. A series of logistic regression models were fitted with progressive covariate adjustment. Subgroup analyses assessed effect modification, and sensitivity analyses tested robustness to alternative analytic specifications. Results In fully-adjusted models, the walking group (OR P = 0.928, 95% CI 0.874–0.984, p = 0.013; OR K = 0.922, 95% CI 0.859–0.989, p = 0.022) and the mixed cycling (OR P = 0.852, 95% CI 0.816–0.890, p < 0.001; OR K = 0.881, 95% CI 0.839–0.925, p < 0.001) exhibited lower biological age accelerations relative to non-active commuting. The cycling group exhibited lower Z-PhenoAA and longer LTL (OR P = 0.890, 95% CI 0.837–0.947, p < 0.001; OR T = 0.944, 95% CI 0.893–0.998, p = 0.044). The findings in the sensitivity analyses remained consistent with the main results. Conclusion Active commuting, especially cycling, is associated with slower biological aging and replacing car use with bicycle commuting may offer a simple, low-cost and time-efficient strategy that may effectively delay biological aging.