:

The Livelong Newsletter: Feature Edition

Good morning,

Do you think aging is the same for everyone?

Even though our chronological age gets older with each passing year, our bodies may not age at the same rate as time passes.

This suggests that a person’s biological age could be younger (or older) than their chronological age. 🤯

Irina Conboy, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, joins Livelong to set the record straight about biological age.

She demystifies the truth about clocks (technologies) that try to predict biological age, the best biomarker to measure age, interventions to slow aging, or even reverse it, and so much more.

In today’s newsletter, you will learn:

• What is biological age?

• Why should you know biological age?

• Why most aging clocks can’t predict biological age.

• What works instead.

• And so much more…

This topic is a wild ride. Enjoy.

HEALTHY AGING

Why measure biological age?

As time passes and we grow older, researchers seek new ways to keep our biological age young and understand how to measure this age.

Biological age is the age of our cells.

Biological age fundamentally answers an important question, according to John Beard, PhD, a professor and director of the International Longevity Center at Columbia University in New York City, in an interview with Everyday Health.

“How long have I got to live?” he says.

Biological age:

• Helps to understand the changes that drive aging and disease risk, Beard says.

• Gives a baseline for understanding current health status.

• Can help with the creation of interventions that stop aging.

Existing tools to estimate biological age

Researchers have created many tools to estimate biological age. A well-known tool is called an aging (epigenetic) clock, which is a machine-learning algorithm that predicts biological age based on biomarkers and other biological information.

Various types of aging clocks—such as the Elastic Net (EN) DNA methylation (DNAme) clocks—look at regions of DNA methylation in the body (specifically methylation of the cytosine nucleotide on the genome) to predict biological age.

Why look at DNA methylation patterns?

• Methylation patterns differ between people who are young and old, says Irina Conboy, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, in a recent interview with Livelong.

• It shows alterations to the genetic structure. Methylation patterns are shaped by genetics and lifestyle, and these patterns can change how a gene functions, and they are associated with aging, according to an article from Harvard Gazette.

Here’s the problem with methylation aging clocks

They predict chronological age and NOT biological age, Conboy says. 

The thing is, you can “look at your driver's license” if you want to know your chronological age; you do not need an aging test to get that information, Conboy says.

These clocks also cannot tell you whether the DNA methylation patterns cause biological aging, or if they are just linked with aging, says Vadim Gladyshev, PhD, a principal investigator in the Division of Genetics at Brigham Women’s Heath, to Harvard. 

• It also cannot show age-related biomarkers, such as inflammation, that drive aging, Gladyshev adds.

To put it simply, methylation-based aging clocks are “just for entertainment purposes,” Conboy says.

Biological noise: the better biomarker

Rather than try to predict biological age without understanding what causes aging (or disease, for that matter), experts want to be able to actually measure aging and disease.

Measuring ‘biological noise,’ defined as cell-to-cell variability, is one such way.

• Biological noise looks for differences in protein and mRNA production in every cell.

• More fluctuation of proteins and genes reflects an increase in biological noise. This is the “true and accurate biomarker of aging itself,” Conboy says. 

Under pressure

To measure biological noise, scientists use a “noise barometer.” The barometer measures pressure, like how a meteorological barometer measures atmospheric pressure.

Unlike the weather device, a noise barometer measures the “pressure of aging and disease on an organism,” according to authors in the 2023 paper published in the journal Aging (Conboy is one of the authors).

• More noise is associated with a higher pressure of aging and disease; therefore, the amount of noise “quantifies the degree of health problem(s),” Conboy says.

Take arthritis, for example. During a study published in the paper in Aging, people with arthritis had more noisy areas of the genome than healthy patients.

This indicated the presence of disease and, correspondingly, people with arthritis were biologically older than their chronological age.

Why is measuring biological noise effective?

The biomarker literally shows how aging changes cells

More noise (or cell-to-cell fluctuations in proteins and genes) reflects a stronger presence of disease and aging.

It is one of the first biomarkers to show the “progression from being young to becoming old,” according to Conboy.

It does not measure aging using a linear model

Biological aging itself is not linear—our bodies don’t just age at the same exact rate throughout our lifetime—so aging shouldn’t be measured as if it does, Conboy explains. 

Conboy shares an example of how biological aging actually looks. 

• “There is a healthy plateau of adulthood,” Conboy explains. “That plateau is only short, unfortunately, and it's not perfect. Then, at some point, there is an exponential rise in aging and disease. Then for some people who have healthy aging, there is an additional plateau of old age.”

This biomarker can distinguish between health and disease

Conboy suggests that traditional epigenetic aging clocks (i.e., methylation clocks) do NOT show the presence of disease, while noise barometers can measure the pressure of disease.

Biological noise is repairing a car before it’s broken

Being able to measure biological noise is like repairing a car before it ever becomes broken.

“When you drive a car and notice a strange noise, it indicates a problem,” Conboy explains. “[But] a good mechanic can identify and repair it before the car is too broken.”

The same principle could be applied to our aging cells

One day, scientists hope that calculating biological age can promote the development of anti-aging interventions to repair certain organs and body parts, or reduce physiological age of the entire body, according to Everyday Health.

Measuring biological age may also lead to the development of interventions that prevent disease in the first place, Conboy says.

“Once we understand the process of aging, we can treat it like a class… like how antibiotics treat the class of infectious diseases,” she says.

THE MORE YOU KNOW

What could slow biological aging?

Diet and exercise

Perhaps unsurprisingly, diet and exercise are the best things that you can do to keep yourself younger and healthier, Conboy says.

Therapeutic plasma exchange

Small studies have found that diluting blood via therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) can be an effective way to slow aging. However, this is not the safest procedure for healthy bodies, according to Conboy.

Pharmacologic treatments

The Conboy lab has done pre-clinical work on certain pharmacological treatments to make various organ systems healthier and younger.

Tissue stem cells

Tissue stem cells perform worse with age and inflammation increases, Conboy says. Stem cells can help to maintain organ function throughout our lives and mitigate the effects of aging.

Thought this was interesting?

That’s great! Please take a second to share this newsletter with a friend. This way, we can continue to give you fresh, actionable, and evidence-based information that supports your health and well-being.

🔔 Catch up on last week’s newsletter

We learn about OpenAI’s new project to stop chronic disease, a biohacker’s love story and health regimen, and much more.

We can’t wait to cover more trending topics in longevity in our next newsletter. Stay tuned.

-Erin

Longevity Media LLC

Be your own expert. Optimize your health. Look beyond conventional.

Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health care professional before starting any exercise, wellness, or health program. Nothing in our content, products or services should be considered, or used as a substitute for, medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Livelong is a media company and not a medical provid