Aging clocks & mortality timers, methylation, glycomic, telomeric and more. A window to measuring biological age

Abstract

As humans age multiple forms of biological decay ensue, and many aspects of human biology can be measured to determine how far biological machinery has drifted from homeostasis. Research has led to aging clocks being developed that claim to predict biological age as opposed to chronological age. Aging could be regarded as a measured loss of homeostatic biological equilibrium that augments biological decay in fully developed tissues. Measuring aspects of how far various elements of biology have drifted from a youthful state may allow us to make determinations on a subject's health but also make informed predictions on their biological age. As we see across human physiology, many facets that maintain human health taper off such as nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, glutathione, catalase, super oxide dismutase, and more. Extracellular vesicle density also tapers off during age combined with epigenetic drift, telomere attrition, and stem cell exhaustion, whilst genomic instability and biological insults from environment and lifestyle factors increase. Measuring these types of biomarkers with aging clocks may allow subjects to understand their own health more accurately and enable subjects to better focus on their efforts in the pursuit of longevity and, in addition, allow healthcare practitioners to deliver better health advice.

Keywords: aging clocks; epigenetic clock; telomeres.

FIGURE 1

Graph indicating where maturation starts, which (for the purpose of this paper) is where aging starts. After maturation, a steady decline happens across numerous biological systems, which is shown as a percentage of how effective those systems (as an average) remain throughout age. Measuring aging with this method offers a baseline for aging, which starts at organismal maturation with the steady descent toward senescence. This method allows comparisons with the point of maturation for better data resolution