GendAge

Sex- and gender-sensitive prevention of cardiovascular and metabolic disease in older adults in Germany (GendAge)

We aim at understanding, which mechanisms affect cardio-metabolic morbidity, mortality, and quality of life among older adults in a sex- and gender-sensitive manner. We will include the sociocultural construct gender for the first time in a large-scale comprehensive German study and develop a novel construct for gender. We will analyze, which mechanisms must be targeted to reduce the development of manifest disease endpoints from intermediate phenotypes in a sex- and gender-sensitive manner.

The target population of this study was the 1.600 older participants of the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II). BASE-II is a selectivity-controlled convenience sample consisting of an equal number of men and women aged 65+ of Berlin, Germany, metropolitan residents.

BASE-II is a population-based cohort study originally launched to investigate factors of “healthy vs. unhealthy” aging. The study described here will be based on already existing BASE-II data (first wave) and data newly ascertained in the current study as BASE-II follow-up data (second wave, completed in March 2020) with respect to the variables needed to answer the proposed research questions. The time interval between the first and this second investigation of 1,100 participants  encompassed an average of 7.4 years.

Project partners

Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Biology of Aging group (Prof. Dr. Ilja Demuth) – data ascertainment, administration, and data analyses; Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Institute of Gender in Medicine (Prof. Dr. Vera Regitz-Zagrosek) – data ascertainment (vascular and myocardial function, gender construct), data analyses

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Dept. of Psychology (Prof. Dr. Denis Gerstorf) – data ascertainment (psychosocial conditions, quality of life), data analyses

Funding: 2017 - 2021 by BMBF