Generation Scotland

🌍 New research reveals how air pollution impacts our health at the molecular level.

Our latest preprint on medRxiv explored biological impacts of eight air pollutants in Generation Scotland, and here's what we found:
🌫️ Air pollution harms health, even at low levels — PM2.5 linked to dementia, coarse nitrate to heart attacks, over 18 years of follow-up.
🧬 Pollution leaves a molecular fingerprint — Exposure accelerated biological ageing and altered inflammation-related proteins.
🔬 Multi-pollutant modelling matters — Studying eight pollutants simultaneously uncovered signatures that single-pollutant approaches would have missed.

A huge thank you to all Generation Scotland volunteers — this research wouldn't be possible without you. 💙

🔗 Read the full preprint:
Robertson et al. (2026) https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.03.04.26347573

⚠️ Note: This is a preprint and has not yet been peer-reviewed.

📢New research!!

While we all age at the same chronological rate, we do not all experience biological ageing at the same rate. There are wide varieties in individual health outcomes as we age, with some individuals ageing with minimal impacts to their health and others developing chronic diseases. Researchers are exploring whether epigenetic clocks – DNA-based biomarkers of ageing – can predict future disease risk. This study evaluated how well 14 different clocks predicted outcomes over a 10-year period.

This study was a comparison review of 14 epigenetic clocks that found there is promise for second and third-generation clocks to predict disease risk, particularly in relation to respiratory and liver-based conditions. This study provides a strong foundation for the targeted selection of epigenetic clocks for consideration in clinical risk prediction models.

Grateful to all Generation Scotland participants whose generous contributions made this research possible.

Read the full paper, Mavrommatis et al. (2025): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-66106-y