COHORT PROFILE Cohort Profile: The Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II)y

Similar to other industrialized countries, Germany’s population is ageing. Whereas some people enjoy good physical and cognitive health into old age, others suffer from a multitude of age-related disorders and impairments which reduce life expectancy and affect quality of life. To identify and characterize the factors associated with ‘healthy ’ vs. ‘unhealthy ’ ageing, we have launched the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II), a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional project that ascertains a large number of ageing-related variables from a wide range of different functional domains. Phenotypic assessments include factors related to geriatrics and in-ternal medicine, immunology, genetics, psychology, sociology and economics. Baseline recruitment of the BASE-II cohort was recently completed and has led to the sampling of 1600 older adults (age range 60–80 years), as well as 600 younger adults (20–35 years) serving as the basic population for in-depth analyses. BASE-II dat