Type of assessment/domain | Example assessments/tests |
Physical examination and medical history | Medical history structured by organ systems, medication, body weight, height, lifestyle (including smoking status, alcohol consumption, physical activity) |
Physical status and functional tests | Tinetti Mobility Test, Timed up & Go Test, Barthel Index (ADL), Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale (IADL), hand grip strength, anthropometric parameters, pulse wave velocity/ arterial stiffness (Mobil-o-Graph), echocardiography, ECG, spirometry, motion monitoring (Actigraph), dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) |
Psychological screening tests | Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST)*, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD) |
Questionnaires | EPIC (Food-Frequency Questionnaire), Gender Questionnaire, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Rapid Assessment of Physical Activity, SARC-F, SF-36 |
Laboratory values† | Blood, serum or plasma: 25-hydroxyvitamin D, apolipoprotein A1, apolipoprotein B, basophiles, calcium, cortisol, creatinine, creatine kinase, C-reactive protein, cystatin C, dehydroepiandrosterone, eosinophils, erythrocytes, ferritin, folic acid, gamma-glutamyltransferase, glucose 1, glucose 2‡, glutamate, oxalacetate transaminase, glutamate-pyruvate transaminase, HbA1c, high-densitylipoprotein cholesterol, hematocrit, haemoglobin, homocysteine, international normalised ratio, iron, low-densitylipoprotein cholesterol, leucocytes, lipoprotein (a), lymphocytes, magnesium, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, mean corpuscular volume, monocytes, neutrophils, oestradiol, osteocalcin, partial thromboplastin time, RDW, sex hormone-binding globulin, testosterone, thrombocytes, thyroid-stimulating hormone, thyroxine, total cholesterol, triglycerides, triiodothyronine, urea, uric acid, vitamin B12, zinc. Urine: albumin, creatinine, desoxypyridinoline, test strip: bilirubin, blood (erythrocytes), glucose, ketones, leucocytes, nitrite, pH value, protein, specific weight, urobilinogen Dried blood cards: arsenic, brain derived neurotropic-factor, cadmium, chromium, fatty acids (C12:0, C14:0, C15:0, C16:0, C16:1n7, C17:0, C18:0, C18:1,t6-11, C18:1,c9, C18:1,c11, C18:2,n-6, C20:0, C18:3,n-6, C18:3,n-3, C20:1,n-9, C20:2,n-6, C22:0/C20:3,n-6, C20:4,n-6, C20:5,n-3, C24:0, C22:5,n-3, C22:6,n-3, unknown), HbA1c, hsCRP, lead, mercury, nickel, total cholesterol |
Genomics | Genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping using the ‘Global Screening Array’ (Illumina); genome-wide DNA methylation profiling using the ‘Infinium MethylationEPIC’ array (Illumina) |
Psychosocial questionnaire | Well-being, positive affect and negative affect, emotion regulation, stress, personality, control beliefs, domain-specific control, time perception, embitterment, loneliness, solitude, social activities, network structure, sexuality, risk behaviour, etc |
Biobanking | Blood plasma and serum, urine, DNA extracted from EDTA-blood and buccal swaps |
Cognitive tests (third study visit) | Episodic memory (Picture-Word-Task, Face-Profession-Task, Object Location Task, Scene-Encoding, Verbal learning and memory test), Working memory (Letter Updating, Spatial Updating, Number-N-Back), Executive functioning/processing speed (Multi-Source-Interference Task, Digit Symbol Substitutions Test*), Fluid intelligence (Letter series, Number series, Practical Problems), Subjective Health Horizon Questionnaire (SHH-Q) |
Immunological assessment | Cryopreservation of whole blood (SmartTube system) or isolated peripheral blood mononuclearcells, and serum samples. Direct ex vivo staining of recent thymic emigrants (RTE, CD31+CD45RA+CD4+T cells), TEMRA (CD45RA+CD8+T cells), Tregs (CD25bright CD127- CD4+T cells), cytotoxic CD4+Tcells, among others using four different panels: (1) ImmunoCount Panel (CD45, CD3, CD56, CD19, CD16, CD14, CD123, CD1c); (2) RTE panel (CD3, CD4, CD8, CD45RA, CCR7, CD31, CD95, CD11a); (3) TREG panel (CD3, CD4, CD8, CD25, CD127); (4) Effector T cell panel (CD3, CD4, CD8, CD45RA, CCR7, SLAM-F7, IL-6R, CD57, PD-1). Panels were measured on MacsQuant 10 (Miltenyi), MacsQuant 16 (Miltenyi) or LSR II (BD) |
*Assessed at study visit 1 and visit 3.
†Blood samples were drawn after a fasting period of at least 8 hours (if not otherwise indicated).
‡Post-load (75 g glucose, 2 hours), not assessed in participants with known diabetes.
BASE-II, Berlin Aging Study II.