How Old Are You Really? New Test Calculates Biological Age and Longevity With 90% Accuracy
You've heard it for years: Age is just a number. But there's been a huge focus lately on biological age, which is how old your cells are. There are a bunch of different ways to calculate this number, including tests you can order online. But researchers have just discovered a new way of calculating your biological age—and they say it's the most accurate one you'll find. It's called the Health Octo Tool, and it uses a slew of different metrics to figure out your biological age.
Meet the experts: David Cutler, M.D., a family medicine physician at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA; Parul Goyal, M.D., a geriatrician at Vanderbilt Health in Nashville; Shabnam Salimi, M.D., Ph.D., physician-scientist and an investigator at the University of Washington Medicine Healthy Aging & Longevity Research Institute
Here's why there's so much buzz around it right now, plus why knowing your biological age may help you live longer.
The Health Octo tool is a new health assessment tool that uses several metrics taken from a physical exam and routine lab tests. When used together, it can help determine a person's biological age and predict their risk of disability and death, according to a scientific paper published in Nature Communications.
The tool centers around an aging concept called health entropy, which is how much molecular and cellular damage the body accumulates over time, as well as how that damage impacts organs and bodily systems.
To create the tool, the researchers analyzed data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging, analyzing participants' medical history as well as data from physical exams and other medical tests. The researchers also included data from two other large studies on more than 45,000 adults.
The scientists created what they called a Body Organ Disease Number, which was based on the number of organ systems, like the cardiovascular, respiratory, and central nervous systems, that were impacted by disease. They also factored in whether a person had a history of cancer or stroke to get a score between one and 14.
The researchers also created something called a Speed-Body Clock and Speed-Body Age to break down how a person's biological age impacts their walking speed (which is a common measure of function in older people). Also in the mix: Disability-Body Clock and Disability Body Age, which analyzes how getting older impacts the risk of developing cognitive and physical disability.
All of those metrics can be gathered from a person's medical history, physical exam, and test results to calculate a person's aging process.
Ultimately, the researchers say that the Health Octo tool is better than major tests used for assessing biological age, including the frailty index, a widely-used test that looks at a person's susceptibility to age-related health issues. The researchers found that the test can predict the odds of developing disability and death with 90% or higher accuracy.
The Health Octo tool uses some of the same data from existing biological tests, but takes things a step further. Many of the tests that are currently used focus on the impact of certain diseases, but don't consider how those diseases and minor disorders impact a person's overall health, the researchers explained in the paper.
'Health decline is multi-dimensional,' says lead study author Shabnam Salimi, M.D., Ph.D., physician-scientist and an investigator at the University of Washington Medicine Healthy Aging & Longevity Research Institute. 'So, we decided to develop a multi-dimensional health metric that captures intrinsic aging and rate of aging.'
Knowing your biological age has become more of a fun health flex lately, but doctors say it's important to know this number beyond bragging rights. 'There is some value to seeing the things you should be doing,' says David Cutler, M.D., a family medicine physician at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA. Meaning, if you know your diet isn't as clean as it should be, and your biological age is older than your chronological age (i.e. how many years you've been alive), it should be a wake-up call to do things differently.
'Biological aging mechanisms underlie accumulation of chronic diseases,' Dr. Salimi says. 'So, translating health to rate of aging can help to better understand biological aging mechanisms and response to interventions that target biological age.'
Parul Goyal, M.D., a geriatrician at Vanderbilt Health in Nashville, agrees. 'Knowing your biological age is a good tool so that patients are more aware of what their health looks like,' she says. 'They can then make proactive, positive changes in their health to be more physically fit and emotionally engaged.'
While Dr. Cutler points out that 'you probably know that you should be doing things differently anyway,' if you're not on top of your health habits, he notes that a higher biological age may motivate some people to make changes. Of course, that doesn't mean that it will. 'Is that going to make people drink less, avoid smoking, and eat better? We don't know,' Dr. Cutler says.
Doctors recommend doing a lot of different things to age in a healthy way, although none are shocking. Here's the advice Dr. Cutler and Dr. Goyal share with their patients:
Eat a healthy, varied diet—ideally the Mediterranean diet.
Limit alcohol or avoid it entirely.
Don't smoke or quit smoking.
Try to be active on a daily basis.
Stay on top of routine healthcare, including cancer screenings.
Wear a helmet when you ride a bike.
Use your seatbelt in the car.
Try to minimize stress in your life.
Focus on getting good sleep.
Try to stay mentally stimulated.
Socialize with friends and family.
Dr. Salimi says that she and her fellow researchers are now working on developing an app to make the Health Octo Tool easier to use.
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