In the quest to understand and combat frailty in older adults, a team of researchers led by Sofiya Milman has developed a novel tool known as the Frailty Resilience Score (FRS). Frailty is a condition characterized by increased vulnerability to disability and a high risk of mortality in older adults. The FRS is a measure that integrates genetic risk factors for frailty, age, and sex to provide a quantifiable measure of an individual's resilience against frailty.

The researchers applied the FRS to the LonGenity cohort, a group of 467 individuals with a mean age of 74.4 years. The results demonstrated the validity of the FRS compared to phenotypic frailty, a measure of frailty based on observable characteristics, and its utility as a reliable predictor of overall survival. In fact, for every standard deviation increase in the FRS, there was a 38% reduction in the hazard of mortality, independent of baseline frailty.

This study introduces the FRS as a reliable measure of frailty resilience that can be applied to biological studies of resilience. The development of the FRS represents a significant advancement in the field of gerontology, providing a new tool for predicting longevity and health in older adults. It also opens up new avenues for identifying factors that contribute to frailty resilience, which is a crucial step towards developing effective therapies to protect against frailty.