What is biological age?
The concept of biological age is typically attributed to Alex Comfort who wrote a paper in 1969 on the subject. But the biggest advance in the area came in 2013 when Steve Horvath, a professor of human genetics and biostatistics at the University of California, Los Angeles suggested using a “clock” based on the field of epigenetics.
During our lives, our DNA accumulates molecular changes that turn different genes on and off, Smith reports. Horvath analyzed those changes in thousands of people and was able to create an algorithm to determine how those changes correlate with age.
According to Jesse Poganik, an instructor at Harvard Medical School who researches biological aging, these DNA changes happen naturally as we get older but can be accelerated by behaviors that affect health, like smoking and consuming excessive amounts of alcohol. As a result, biological age estimates have been found to correlate with life expectancy and health.
See more: https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2024/01/02/biological-age
