Biological Age Of Skin
As mentioned previously, each of your organs has its own biological age and we would be remiss if we didnt arm you with some extra knowledge regarding your largest organ – skin!
As your immune systems first defense, your skin is an immediate window into the state of your health, making its biological age a good predictor of your healthspan. Thats why we have gone one level deeper and coined the term skinspan – the length of time that your skin is healthy and functional. Much like your healthspan is correlated with your bodys biological age, your skinspan is directly correlated with your skins biological age – the lower your skins biological age, the longer your skinspan. And the longer your skinspan, the more likely you are to extend your healthspan due to the skins impact on your overall health!
Biological Age: A Predictor Of Longevity And Healthspan
Thanks to modern technological advancements, the average American lifespan has reached 7941% higher than it was 100 years ago. But modern life has also resulted in an increase of chronic diseases, which now affect nearly half of all Americans. In other words, a long life doesn’t always translate to a higher quality of life. In fact, your chronological age might not accurately represent your body’s internal or biological age at all.
What is biological age? Biological age is your bodys internal age. It reveals the efficiency at which your body is working and how well it should be working given your chronological age.
As lifespan continues to increase, our healthspan becomes increasingly important. Unlike lifespan, which is simply concerned with chronological age, healthspan encompasses biological, physical, and mental health throughout the aging process. Read about the factors that influence our biological age and the best ways to measure it.
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Levine is working with a group to provide access to the algorithm online so that anyone can calculate their biological age, identify potential risks and take the steps to help their own health in the long run.
No one wants to live an extremely long life when they are in very poor health and have a lot of chronic disease, Levine said. By delaying the onset of diseases and cognitive and physical functioning problems, people can still be engaged in society, she said. I think that is the ideal we should be striving for.
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How Can You Reverse Your Biological Age
It turns out that reversing biological age doesnt necessarily require a strict drug regimen like the aforementioned study, and can in fact be reached through relatively simple lifestyle changes. In fact, since lifestyle factors impact how your genes are ultimately expressed, your habits actually impact your biological age more than even your genes do. The following are a few steps you can take to decrease your biological age:
Types Of Age: What Is Your True Age
How old do you think you are if you dont know your birthday?
Surprisingly, your answer may not be the same as your actual age, as you may feel younger or even older. Why? The concept of age is closely related, and the key to longevity is to be clear about aging. Even for people who are aware of their age, aging is usually different for everyone.
A human beings age can be categorized into four types: Chronological age, Appearance age, Biological age, and Mental age.
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What Is Your Real Biological Age And What Does This Mean For Your Health
article by Carissa Bonner
Age-based risk calculators that work out your real biological age are increasingly popular. We hear about body age on various health shows, by gyms that promote reductions in metabolic age and fitness age and games and apps that claim to lower your brain age, while researchers have developed specific organ measures like heart age, lung age and bone age.
It seems most people have a biological age that is older than it should be. Four out of five people, for instance, have an older heart age than their current age. But what does this really mean?
All these age calculators compare your measurements for a range of health risk factors to an average or an ideal number to come up with your score. Having an older biological age on these calculators simply means you have at least one risk factor that is higher than the number set as normal.
But unless we know which specific risk factors are above normal, and how normal is defined, its hard to know whether you should really be worried, or what you should do about it.
In a recent television show that aired in the UK, researchers assessed the performance of volunteers during 23 different tests and combine this into an overall body age. Individual test results are explained to each person, but the volunteers have little reaction to these numbers until they are converted into a body age.
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Jacc Focus Seminar: Vascular Agingbiological Versus Chronological Aging: Jacc Focus Seminar
Vascular disease onset and mortality are highly variable among individuals.
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Chronological age is suboptimal for estimating vascular aging.
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Biological vascular age should be used to select individuals for early prevention of cardiovascular disease.
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Biological vascular aging can be targeted by behavioral and pharmacological interventions.
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The Epigenomes Connection To Biological Age
Your genome is your complete DNA , which holds the instructions for building the proteins that carry out a variety of functions in a cell. Your epigenome is made up of chemical compounds and proteins that can attach to your DNA. They tell the DNA what to do turn on and off, make this protein or that. When epigenetic compounds attach to DNA, they are said to have “marked” the genome. These marks do not change the sequence of the DNA, but they do change the way cells read the DNA’s instructions. DNA methylation is one type of mark, and it can be identified and tracked as a sign of aging in different parts of the genome.
To simplify, Levine makes the analogy of a kitchen pantry stocked with ingredients and a cookbook. Your genes are all the ingredients and epigenetics is the cookbook, she says. You might not use all the ingredients, and the instructions will determine which youll use and those you wont.
Despite the neatness and usefulness of one biological age number, in reality, your tissues and organs all have their own biological age. Its your personalized mosaic, Levine says. Its a combination of biological ages that reflect the age at which your body is expected to function . At this stage, the averaged biological age is one of the best biomarkers for predicting a variety of aging outcomes. In the future, the goal is to become more and more specific with biological age in different parts of the body.
Chronological Vs Biological Age
As humans, we have two different ageschronological and biological. Chronological age is the number of years a person has been alive, while biological age refers to how old a person seems.
Biological age, also referred to as physiological age, takes many lifestyle factors into consideration, including diet, exercise and sleeping habits, to name a few.
How we age is beyond our control. It’s primarily influenced by genetics, but research sheds light on how aging can be impacted by external factors, including diet, exercise, stress, and smoking.
Many gerontologists believe chronological age to be an incomplete figure because it doesn’t take these external factors into consideration.
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How Lifestyle And Habits Affect Biological Aging
Biological age, also called physiological age, is a measure of how well or poorly your body is functioning relative to your actual calendar age. For example, you may have a calendar age, or chronological age, of 65, but because of a healthy and active lifestylefor example, by avoiding longevity threats like tobacco and obesityyour body is physiologically more similar to someone with a chronological age of 55. Your biological age would, therefore, be 55.
There are several ways that you can determine your biological age, but none is definitive or truly accurate. However, there are certain health factors that could give you years back on your average life expectancy.
Does The Distinction Between Biological And Chronological Age Support Legal Age Change
Abstract
In the fields of gerontology and anti-aging medicine, there is a commonly used distinction between biological and chronological age. Recent developments in epigenetics suggest that our epigenomethe chemical changes that happen above our DNA sequencemight be the key to understanding and calculating human biological aging. The distinction between biological and chronological age could have significant implications for how we should understand our legal age. Currently chronological age is used as a proxy for how well people function. But the results from epigenetics research imply that it may soon be possible to calculate a persons biological age accurately. When that happens, shouldnt our legal age be based on our biological rather than chronological age since biological age is a better indication on how able and well-functioning we actually are?
Although little consensus exists on how exactly our biological age should be determined, different estimates have been proposed and used with promising results. Some estimates of biological age predict mortality or onset of age-related diseases more accurately than chronological age. For instance, a multibiomarker index of adults biological age outperformed their chronological age in predicting subsequent increased and clinically significant depressive symptoms.
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How Much Exercise Do I Need To Help Decrease My Biological Age
Lets start with what the Australian Government recommends:
50 to 300 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity physical activity, or an equivalent combination of both moderate and vigorous activities, each week.
Muscle strengthening activities on at least two days each week.
If you already do this, then you deserve a gold star! To take your fitness age to the next level, you could include some HIIT in your exercise regime.
Note – Its important to see a GP or health professional if you plan to make significant changes to your fitness routine though.
Ways To Measure Biological Age
Telomere length
Research demonstrates a strong relationship between telomere length and aging. Telomeres, the structures at the end of chromosomes, tend to decrease with ageshorter telomeres are associated with lower survival and higher incidence of disease, and vice versa. However, dietary and lifestyle factors can impact their rate of attrition. Individuals with healthier diets and who exercise more tend to have longer telomeres compared to those with chronic diseases and who lead more sedentary lifestyles.
There are several ways to measure telomere length but all vary in their accuracy. The terminal restriction fragment is the oldest approach to measure telomeres and remains the gold standard in research settings, but it is not commercially available. The flow-FISH analysis has been used in clinical settings to measure telomere length but only in certain patients. Some companies now offer ways to measure telomeres through a method called quantitative polymerase chain reaction , though variability in its accuracy and the lack of actionable information it provides has prompted some criticism.
Epigenetic clocks
Biomarker predictors
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A Summary Of Biological Age And Healthspan
- Healthspan focuses on the preservation of our biological, physical, and mental health as we age, and not just the length of time we are alive.
- Your biological age reveals how well your body is working and how well it should be working given your chronological age.
- Several factors influence our biological age, including genetics, diet, exercise, biomarkers, and sleep.
- There are several proposed ways of measuring biological aging, including telomere length, epigenetic clocks, and InnerAge.
- InsideTrackers InnerAge model relies on biomarkers and personalized data to deliver a biological age.
- InnerAge also provides an action plan to biohack your biological age and healthspan, combining peer-reviewed science with your blood data to deliver ultra-personalized nutrition and lifestyle recommendations.
Diana Licalzi, MS, RD
- Diana is a Content Strategist and Team Nutritionist at InsideTracker. As a Registered Dietitian and self-proclaimed “biohacker,” Diana enjoys researching and testing the latest trends and technology in the field of nutrition and aging. You’ll often find Diana , completing a 24-hour fast, conducting self experiments, or uncovering strategies to increase longevity. Follow her on Instagram at .
References
What Does Your Metabolic Age Tell You About Your Health
Dr. Natasha Trentacosta is a sports medicine specialist and orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles. She told Healthline that metabolic age is a term the fitness industry has been using in recent years.
BMR is just one measurement of a persons overall health and fitness. You cant use BMR as a single measure of your state of health or fitness level, but it can give insight into your state of health, said Trentacosta.
As with body mass index , BMR has its critics. According to Trentacosta, neither measure factors in body composition properly. For example, a bodybuilder with a lot of lean muscle could end up with a similar estimated BMR or BMI as someone without the same composition.
Currently, there arent many peer-reviewed studies of metabolic age.
Its not a data point in research. Metabolic age isnt something we talk about in the medical community. It does give insight into how you compare to others your age. The marker of the ultimate definition of health it is not, said Trentacosta.
Your chronological age, simply put, is how many calendar years youve been alive. Chronological age is one way to gauge your fitness level compared to your peers.
Your metabolic age is your BMR compared to others in your age group.
So, if your metabolic age comes out to your chronological age, youre similar to the rest of the population of people your age, said Trentacosta.
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Bend The Rules Of Time
To lower your bodys age you need to stay supple, says Lerwill. Dynamic flexibility training in your warm-up or before breakfast is great use yoga, dynamic flow or animal flow exercises to keep your hips and joints open.
Sitting at a desk is terrible for our posture but these exercises fight the bad habits which age you.
Try doing stretches throughout your working day: University of California research found that routinely sitting for ten hours a day increases your biological age by eight years.
A Measure Of Biological Aging
The following are some common questions used to measure FI34 and other estimates of biological age. You can determine your own frailty index score by answering the following 20 questions, summing your results and dividing by the number of questions .
You can also compare your score to average scores of people your age. Individuals under the age of 50 typically have a score of under 0.1, while individuals 60 to 90 years old have an average score of around 0.2. With lifestyle inventions, your score can even go down as you age!
*Note this modified scale only has 20 factors while the FI34 index has 34 your score on the scale above might therefore be somewhat inflated. Find and calculate the full index here.
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Regardless Of How Much Exercise You Do How Much Do You Sit Down Daily
- Im largely sedentary and sit for at least eight hours a day
- I sit for a lot of the day but make an effort to get up and down every hour
- Im active. I dont have a sedentary job
Why it matters:
Further research conducted by the University of California San Diego has found women who are sedentary have shorter telomeresthe caps on the ends of DNAwhile longer telomeres are associated with aging better. In fact, sitting for ten hours or more daily could age you by up to eight years.
Its recommended adults should break up long periods of sitting with some light activity. This could be simply standing up from your desk and going for a short walk around the office or doing a quick 15-minute yoga session on your lunch break.
What Is Chronological Age
Chronological age is the number of years you have been alive – When you blow out the candles on your birthday cake, youre celebrating your chronological age. Your chronological age determines when you can vote, purchase your first martini at a bar, or drive a car. Milestones like your 18th birthday and your big 5-0 describe your chronological age and hard as we may try, chronological age cannot be changed.
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