Biological age: why at 45 some people look 35 and others look 55
Biological age isn't the number on your ID. It's how much wear and tear your body has actually taken, and it can lag years behind your calendar age or race ahead of it. Here's how biological age is measured, what speeds it up and which habits really help you age more slowly.
Two people were born in the same year. At their class reunion, one looks 38 and the other looks 55. Genetics? Partly. Geneticist David Sinclair estimates that genes account for up to half of how fast we age. The other half is what we do every day. And here's the uncomfortable truth: most of those "extra" years we add ourselves.
What is biological age?
Biological age is an estimate of how worn your cells, tissues and organs are, as opposed to chronological age, the number of years you've lived, according to Cleveland Clinic. It can be lower or higher than your actual age, and people born the same year can differ by years.
There are two main ways to estimate it:
- with "epigenetic clocks," which read chemical tags on your DNA;
- from a set of routine markers (blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, pulse, height and weight) that special formulas boil down to a single number.
Can you test your biological age at home?
Not precisely. Tests cost hundreds of dollars, their reliability is still in question, and they aren't part of routine medical practice (Cleveland Clinic). But there's a more honest and free approach: look at the habits that research links to faster or slower aging.
That's exactly the self-check we put in the PDF for this article: 24 statements, a score and the three areas where you have the most room to grow.