Today, the gap between a person’s chronological age and biological age provides an accurate indicator of health. A person with a biological age that is less than the chronological age is more likely to be healthier than a person who has a biological age is much higher than their chronological age. However, as radical youth extension and anti-aging interventions become more effective the notion of chronological age will soon become meaningless. There will be a time when the time since birth won’t mean a lot. The biological age will become a more reliable measure of how a person acts, looks and feels.
Why Measure Biological Age?
Why measure a person’s biological age? There are two main reasons:
- It enables an individual to assess how effective their regime is. You can look at your baseline and then compare how well you are progressing against these clocks without having to wait until you see physical results. Sometimes results could take months or years. It is nice to know whether or not what you are doing effective much sooner. For now, we can rely on less expensive but less accurate tests. Soon the more precise tests will also be accessible.
- More important, it provides researchers who are studying the impact of a particular item with an early idea of the results. Researchers won’t have to follow the study group for decades to find out what is happening to the biological clocks in the shorter term. In short, the researcher can determine whether the supplement is impacting the biological clock with a much shorter runway than has been possible up until now.
The introduction of accurate biological clocks will mean that the pace of studies will begin accelerating dramatically. This means the results of life extension studies will also start to pour in much quicker than ever before.
Biological Clocks
The biological age today is closely correlated with chronological age so we can use a comparison of the two to deduce how likely a person is to get sick. In general, the biological clock is a good indicator of how the person feels. A more youthful clock number means the person feels more like that age.
There are four clocks that we will discuss. The first two are subjective and provide a great inexpensive way for you to see how your program is working. The last two will provide additional assurance that things are working – they are expensive but affordable.
The four clocks we will examine are Quality of Life, The Elastic Skin Test, The Telomere Clock, and the Horvath Clock.
Quality of Life Clock
Your enjoyment of life is essential as both an indicator and in more immediate terms. As radical youth extension becomes more impactful then the age that you use to describe your quality of life will change less and less. There are already online tests that you can take to help you make the assessment. However, I have personally found that an honest and subjective view of what I can do and what I chose to do provides the best indicator. I say honest because there are people who will fool themselves. If you are shut in because you are sick, then admit it, if only to measure the progress you can make on your personal radical youth extension program.
Mental state is also essential. Depression often accompanies old age, and so your mood is a significant factor that contributes to your biological age.
Remember, your biological age is your real age. The chronological age just happened to follow it because we didn’t know how to slow or reverse the biological clock until recently.
Elastic Skin Test Clock
The pinch test is simple enough as described below.
This test assesses your age based on the elasticity of your skin. Firmly press your thumb and index finger on the inner side of the arm, at the crease where you measure the pulse (above the fist), in other words — it is necessary to pinch yourself for 5 seconds as shown. For accurate results, you can use a stopwatch. Next, release the fingers, and then you can determine your biological age by seeing in how many seconds the color of your skin will come back to its original state:
• in 5 seconds – approximately 30 years
• in 8 seconds – approximately 40 years
• in 10 seconds – approximately 50 years
• in 15 seconds – approximately 60 years
Telomere Clock
This clock correlates telomere length to age. As people age, the cells divide more, and if left on their own, the telomeres become shorter. People with longer telomeres tend to have fewer diseases of aging when compared to others of the same age.
The telomere clock loosely provides an indicator to the number of times a cell has divided and is independent of the next test, the Horvath clock. Paradoxically we know that much of what we call aging occurs when the telomeres are their longest – when a person is in the first phase of their life. Perhaps this change is more related to biological maturity at that point as opposed to what we call age.
Horvath Clock
The Horvath clock measures changes to the epigenome, known as methylation. Recall that epigenetics modifies the expression of DNA. The Horvath clock looks for markers on a set of genes associated with aging to provide a 0.96 correlation with age. Perhaps one of the best measures of aging, it is of the more recently available and more expensive tests available.
Summary
I believe the ability for researchers to validate the progress when testing substances that potentially reverse age is essential. By using the Horvath clock, they will be able to find substances that have a robust epigenetic effect. While an individual could use these tests to monitor their personal progress and the effect of the program I believe they are a bit expensive.
Every day the cost of using the Telomere and Horvath clocks are coming down. While they are pricey and available to consumers, the price will soon be affordable. We will keep you posted.