The key for most people is epigenetics: lifestyle factors and environmental factors turn genes on and off.
Morgan Levine: ‘Only 10-30% of our lifespan is estimated to be due to genetics’
It can be said we have two ages: a fixed chronological age based on when we were born and a malleable biological age – the age at which our body is functioning, which can be affected by our lifestyle choices. Dr Morgan Levine designs tools that measure the latter. In her new book, True Age, she argues that we should regularly measure our own biological age – giving us information we could use to monitor, and even gain control over, our own individual ageing process. Levine, 37, is an assistant professor of pathology and epidemiology at Yale University’s school of medicine. This June she will join Altos Labs, a new $3bn (£2.2bn) anti-ageing biotech startup whose funders are said to include Jeff Bezos.Read the entire article at the link.Why is biological age important?
It is more informative than chronological age for predicting risk of disease or death. That’s because it is not chronological time that drives the development of disease, but rather the biological changes taking place among the molecules and cells in our bodies. Most people’s biological age will be within plus or minus five years of their chronological age, but you can have outliers of up to 10 or more years. The wonderful thing, compared with chronological age, is that biological age is modifiable. We don’t yet know exactly how to modify it to the greatest extent, but the clock can be made to tick slower, or even possibly go backwards, in response to our behaviours (though it can also speed up).The first step is getting a valid and reliable measure of it, which my lab has been working on.
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Originally Posted by Peter1469
