Fig. 1

Accelerated intestinal and blood biological aging in PLWH on ART. A Study design schematic. B Chronological age comparison between PLWoH and PLWH on ART, displaying median and interquartile range (IQR). Statistical analysis was performed using the Mann–Whitney U test. C-E Dot-plots illustrating the significant acceleration in biological age for blood (C), ileum (D), and colon (E) based on multiple epigenetic clocks: Horvath1, Horvath2, Hannum, PhenoAge, DNAmTL, GrimAge, and DunedinPACE for blood; Horvath1, Horvath2, Hannum, and DNAmTL for ileum; Horvath1 and DunedinPACE for colon. Positive graph values indicate accelerated biological aging differences per clock, while negative values for DNAmTL signify telomere reduction differences. Both median and IQR are depicted, with statistical analysis via Mann–Whitney U tests. F Dot-plots contrasting tissue-specific accelerated biological age differences in blood, ileum, and colon utilizing Horvath1. Statistical assessments were conducted using the non-parametric Friedman test, corrected using the Two-stage step-up method of Benjamini, Krieger, and Yekutieli