A new technique identifies blood markers for organ-specific aging and related illnesses—but it’s a long way from the clinic.
You’re only as old as you feel, so the adage goes. But new research suggests you may really be as old as your oldest organ. Scientists say they have developed a simple, blood test–based method to measure the speed of aging in individual organs such as the heart and brain. When an organ is substantially “older” than a person’s actual age, the risk of death and diseases related to that part of the body shoots up, the researchers report today in Nature.
Oh, H.SH., Rutledge, J., Nachun, D. et al. Organ aging signatures in the plasma proteome track health and disease. Nature 624, 164–172 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06802-1
