CHRONOLOGICAL AGE VS.BIOLOGICAL AGE HOW TO

His findings determined that multiple tissue types could be used to calculate a person’s biological age. But it might mean you have a risk factor for chronic disease that could be reduced.The first reliable epigenetic clock was developed in 2013 by Steve Horvath, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles. If you get an older “biological age” on any of these calculators, don’t get too worried about the exact number – it’s not a direct measure of ageing or life expectancy. As such, they shouldn’t be used to make decisions about preventive medication, such as whether to take drugs to lower cholesterol levels or blood pressure. So is there any point to age-based risk calculators? There is some research to suggest “biological age” formats like heart age have more emotional impact and may act as a wake-up call to motivate people like Richard to change their lifestyle and reduce their risk factors – which is a good thing.īut they can also mislead people by making them worry that their risk of disease is higher than it actually is. Since one-quarter of online heart disease risk calculators don’t explain how the calculations are done, it can be very hard to know what the result means, or which one to believe. Health Check: what do my blood pressure numbers mean? Clinically, this is probably not an important difference given the variability in blood pressure readings. If the ideal systolic blood pressure is set as 120mmHg, then what happens if you have 121mmHg? On a heart age calculator, this difference is enough to give you an older heart age result. To add to the confusion, there is no universal agreement on what is ideal, as controversy over recent US guidelines to lower the blood pressure medication threshold demonstrates. You will also get a different heart age based on different definitions of “normal” for the same risk factor – is normal the average, or the ideal? Some won’t provide a number for younger heart age, and set a maximum for older heart age. Some include blood pressure and cholesterol, while others use body mass index to estimate these clinical risk factors. This is because they all use different models with different risk factors and different rules. The problem is, the same person can get an older heart age on one calculator but a younger heart age on another calculator. The NHS’s What’s your heart age? calculator (screenshot) NHS Health Check 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”.īut unless we know which specific risk factors are above normal, and how normal is defined, it’s hard to know whether you should really be worried, or what you should do about it. But what does this really mean?Īll 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. Four out of five people, for instance, have an older heart age than their current age. It seems most people have a “biological age” that is older than it should be.

CHRONOLOGICAL AGE VS.BIOLOGICAL AGE HOW TO

We hear about body age on health shows like How to Stay Young gyms promote reductions in metabolic age and fitness age games and apps claim to lower your brain age and researchers have developed specific organ measures like heart age, lung age and bone age. Age-based risk calculators that work out your “real biological age” are increasingly popular.

Chronological age vs.biological age