New Blood Test Determines “Biological Age”

No one knows how much time they have left on this earth. However, a recent blood test developed by researchers at Yale University could bring us a step closer to knowing more precisely how long that time span is.

According to a published paper that details their findings, the researchers used a combination of the patients’ chronological age, along with nine biomarkers in the blood to come up with their results. When completed, the test is able to provide doctors with a person’s biological age. That biological age or “phenotypic age” (as the Yale researchers refer to it) is how old a person is based on the functionality of their body, as opposed to simply how long they’ve been alive.

In an interview with the Guardian, Morgan Levine, a pathologist at Yale, said the test could be used to determine whether people are aging faster than their chronological age. Those who are could be more at risk of disease and other health complications, he said.

Researchers studied 11,432 participants over a 12.6 year period and observed a total of 871 deaths.

“We showed that even among people who have no diseases, who are presumably healthy, we can still pick up differences in life expectancy,” Levine said. “It’s capturing something preclinical, before any diseases present themselves.”

The study uses data that is already frequently collected during a patient’s annual physical examination.

In recent years, a number of researchers around the globe have been pursuing the most effective form of lifestyle predictor. However, the team from Yale says their test is superior to other tests in terms of both its accuracy and the ease with which it is possible to interpret the results of the test.

The scientists from Yale say that one day doctors might be able to perform the test on their patients and use the results not only to prolong their lifespan, but to increase their quality of life as well.