What Your Biological Age Reveals About Your Lifestyle and Life Expectancy

A biomarker that integrates the experiences of an entire lifetime offers a major opportunity for your health. With the help of a biological age test, you can see how your lifestyle influences your rate of ageing and calculate your life expectancy. Never before has it been possible to receive such detailed feedback on lifestyle and information about your own ageing process.

Table of contents

1. Chronological age determines when you retire
2. Biological age tells your personal life story
3. Epigenetics integrates and preserves all of life’s experiences in your cells
4. Your lifestyle shapes your own epigenetics
5. Smoking changes the epigenetic code and biological age
6. Epigenetic biomarkers make biological age measurable in a test
7. A high BMI accelerates ageing and promotes disease
8. Using a biological age test for personalised health
9. This strategy slows the rate of ageing most effectively
10. Sources

Chronological age determines when you retire

What is the purpose of ageing – being allowed to obtain a driving licence or finally enjoy retirement? Certainly, structure is important. Driving at the age of 12 because you admire racing drivers, or retiring at 35 because work is no longer enjoyable, would not be socially feasible. It would create considerable disorder. Yet order and structure are not everything in life, and apart from these functions, chronological age says very little about you.

For a child, few things may be more fascinating than being allowed to go to the cinema for the first time or drive a car. They can hardly wait for the relevant birthday and eagerly count the nights until the big day. Over the years, however, many people mentally distance themselves from their chronological age. For most adults, it remains the rather bitter undertone of life, even though life would not be possible without it.

All of this applies to chronological age, which we calculate according to the calendar. Today, science gives us a new and more differentiated perspective. Modern research allows you to look at your true age – your so-called biological age.

Biological age tells your personal life story

You are probably familiar with this: some people look as though they are in their mid-30s even though they are actually 50. You may also know the “worn-out look” of people who appear twice their actual age. In these individuals, the difference between chronological and biological age becomes particularly clear.

One reflects our calendar-based measurement of time, in which we count the Earth’s revolutions around the sun. The other is a measure of how quickly or slowly our body is ageing. Researchers use the term biological age to describe how young or old your body is in biological terms, including its cells and everything that holds those cells together.

Scientists associate a low biological age with greater vitality, adaptability, a well-functioning immune system and efficient metabolism. As biological age increases, plasticity declines. Metabolic waste accumulates in the body – in the cells and their surroundings – and processes no longer function as smoothly.

Phenotypically, meaning in terms of visible characteristics, biological ageing appears as sagging skin and more wrinkles. However, these surface signs are only the tip of the iceberg. Increasing biological age leads to more cellular waste and more mutations in DNA. The risk of disease increases. Cells often lack adequate fuel, and metabolism gradually falls out of balance. This has consequences for health.

This is where modern biological age tests such as the neotes bioAge Test come into play. In this article, we show you how to measure your biological age and influence it. We provide you with a tool that can help you remain biologically young for longer, even while the clock on the wall continues to tick.

Epigenetics integrates and preserves all of life’s experiences in your cells

With the neotes bioAge Test, you can determine your biological age. This test examines chemical molecules on the DNA that regulate it. In precise scientific terms, these molecules are known as epigenetic modifications of cytosine, one of the components of DNA.

You can imagine them as yellow Post-it notes that the body attaches to or removes from the DNA as it ages. Put very simply: the older a person becomes, the more notes are added or removed. The pattern created by this “collection of notes” on the DNA is informally referred to as the epigenetic code.

Alongside DNA, this code acts as a kind of second information carrier located on top of (“epi”) the DNA strands. It regulates how the body uses the available DNA. It is a structural adaptation to changing states of DNA activation.

Epigenetics was already conceivable when Watson and Crick identified DNA and its role in 1953. As early as 1942, Conrad Hal Waddington described it as the “branch of biology which studies the causal interactions between genes and their products which bring the phenotype into being”.

In brief: DNA remains almost unchanged throughout life. Epigenetic information changes extensively over the course of – or as a result of – life. This is why we use this epigenetic code as an epigenetic clock. It integrates experiences from your life and therefore allows us to draw conclusions about your biological age.

Your lifestyle shapes your own epigenetics

Whether you smoke and for how long, whether you have experienced periods of hunger or lived with excess weight for a long time – epigenetics stores these life experiences. The epigenetic code even preserves information from the period before your birth.

One important task of this code is to control gene expression. Epigenetic modifications – the addition of new Post-it notes or removal of old ones – determine how a cell uses its genes, whether it translates them frequently or, in extreme cases, switches them off completely. In this way, the body adapts to its environment by adjusting how it uses DNA.

Smoking changes the epigenetic code and biological age

Cells act epigenetically by attaching a so-called methyl group – a chemical building block, or Post-it note – to a gene. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh were able to demonstrate this in smokers.

The scientists asked 4,900 people about their smoking habits. They then counted the number of methyl groups on genes involved in lung function. Using the methylation patterns of these genes, the researchers were able to distinguish smokers from non-smokers. The team could even differentiate heavy smokers from occasional smokers.

These methylation changes altered, for example, how cells used genes involved in lung function. They caused cells to use certain genes more actively or to switch them off completely. Smoking therefore presumably influences mortality and consequently life expectancy.

Good to know: Former smokers in the study showed patterns similar to those of non-smokers. This means that epigenetic changes could be reversed by quitting smoking. You can therefore influence your biological age and, in a sense, turn back the clock.

Epigenetic biomarkers make biological age measurable in a test

To measure biological age, researchers examine selected sites on the DNA. These genomic locations are particularly affected by ageing. Researchers – and we as well with the neotes bioAge Test – measure the type and number of epigenetic changes at these locations.

Put simply, it might look like this: if a genomic site has two methylations, it is considered biologically young. Five methylations indicate biological maturity, and from ten methylations onwards, the epigenetic clock has been ticking for a long time and the site is considered old.

In practice, other patterns are also possible. Ten methylations rather than two could indicate a low biological age, and the relationship is not necessarily linear. What matters is the fundamental association between the methylation pattern and biological age.

To determine which methylation patterns correspond to which age, researchers compare the patterns of many thousands of people. Only these comparisons reveal which patterns indicate people who have remained biologically young and which indicate accelerated biological ageing.

A high BMI accelerates ageing and promotes disease

In their search for the holy grail of immortality, researchers repeatedly encountered the influence of dietary energy. One conclusion quickly emerged: high energy intake from food leads to faster ageing.

Eating more than necessary makes the epigenetic clock tick faster. This affects more than just wrinkles on the cheeks. Faster biological ageing increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes, not least because cells no longer function smoothly and accumulate cellular waste. Fewer calories, by contrast, slow ageing and therefore reduce the rate of biological ageing.

The major opportunity available to all of us lies in making individual lifestyle adjustments that slow the ageing process. You have the power to reduce your biological age through your lifestyle. The neotes bioAge Test gives you direct access to this process.

Using a biological age test for personalised health

This is interesting. But you almost certainly already knew that excess weight is unhealthy. Now let us assume that you have never been overweight and have never smoked. Could you nevertheless belong to the group of people who are biologically ageing prematurely and have a higher risk of developing a chronic disease later in life?

To determine this risk, we offer you the opportunity to assess your biological age. If it differs unusually from your chronological age, you have the chance to take countermeasures at an early stage.

You have the opportunity to look into your DNA. Let your epigenome reveal the story of your past. Everything required for the test can be done at home. All that is needed is a small prick to the finger and a little blood from the fingertip.

The test determines the methylation pattern at characteristic methylation sites that reflect cellular ageing particularly well. This epigenetic code makes it possible to determine your biological age.

The test result may also contain information about risks for certain diseases. Modern preventive medicine has developed a wide range of measures to reduce the threat posed by common chronic diseases.

Let us assume that you have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, even though your general practitioner may currently consider you perfectly healthy. What would be the argument against undergoing regular targeted examinations based on your knowledge of your biological age? No heart attack occurs entirely without warning signs. You simply have to look closely enough and early enough, and much can be prevented.

Let us assume that your biological age corresponds to your chronological age. Can you still actively influence it and make it increase more slowly? Epigenetic research gives a clear and positive answer. Certain dietary patterns, such as the Mediterranean diet, and physical activity influence the epigenome. Through targeted measures, we can help you actively reduce your rate of ageing.

Epigenetic age assessment also makes it possible to see the “before-and-after effect”. Directly monitor how changes in your life influence your biological age. You can read about the overall contribution of lifestyle to agility in old age in the article Lifestyle influences agility in old age more than genes.

This strategy slows the rate of ageing most effectively

Valter Longo’s research offers remarkable insights into the world of anti-ageing strategies. As a professor of gerontology, he studies calorie reduction and fasting.

Based on decades of research and studies on the ageing of flies, worms, rodents, primates and humans, he outlines the Longevity Diet, a dietary pattern proven to delay ageing and protect against disease.

The Longevity Diet includes occasional pseudo-fasting, known as the Fasting Mimicking Diet. In experiments, Longo was able to show that pseudo-fasting activates regeneration through stem cells. Increased autophagy, or cellular cleansing, and low levels of insulin and IGF-1 were important for reducing ageing.

Conclusion: This type of approach slows ageing as much as possible. It leads to less inflammation and reduced oxidative damage. It lowers the risk of age-related diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart attack. Try it, even without fasting – and begin with the test of your biological age to calculate your life expectancy.

You are also welcome to speak with our experts and learn about the latest developments in ageing research. With our free telephone consultation, we have created an excellent opportunity for interested people like you to interact with us. Take the opportunity to learn more about health, epigenetics and your true biological age. Book an appointment with our experts here. We explore in greater depth how cellular ageing can be reversed through the epigenetic clock in the article Improving biological age: the epigenetic clock.

Sources

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2. Morrow JD, Make B, Regan E, et al. DNA Methylation Is Predictive of Mortality in Current and Former Smokers. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2020. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31995399
3. Liang Y, Wang Z. Which is the Most Reasonable Anti-aging Strategy: Meta-analysis. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2018. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30232765
4. Oblak L, van der Zaag J, Higgins-Chen AT, Levine ME, Boks MP. A systematic review of biological, social and environmental factors associated with epigenetic clock acceleration. Ageing Res Rev. 2021. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33930583
5. Brandhorst S, Choi IY, et al. A periodic diet that mimics fasting promotes multi-system regeneration, enhanced cognitive performance and healthspan. Cell Metab. 2016. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4509734
6. Longo VD, Anderson RM. Nutrition, longevity and disease: From molecular mechanisms to interventions. Cell. 2022. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35487190