

- #FUNCTIONAL AGE VS CHRONOLOGICAL AGE HOW TO#
- #FUNCTIONAL AGE VS CHRONOLOGICAL AGE DRIVER#
- #FUNCTIONAL AGE VS CHRONOLOGICAL AGE MANUAL#
- #FUNCTIONAL AGE VS CHRONOLOGICAL AGE FULL#
Methylation is likely causally related to the gene expression changes that are not just associated with aging, but CAUSE aging.

Natureīut perhaps even more importantly, researchers are starting to see DNA methylation as having a causal role in aging: Individual human age can be predicted with great accuracy (R 2 = 0.92) in a range of tissues by an epigenetic clock. Steve Horvath, NatureĪging resembles a developmentally regulated process that is tightly controlled by specific epigenetic modifications and age-associated methylation changes that exist in the human genome… This study implicates that DNA methylation can be an available biological marker of age-prediction. Recent evidence from human and mouse studies demonstrates that DNA methylation-based (DNAm) biomarkers satisfy the formerly elusive criteria of a molecular biomarker of ageing: they apply to all sources of DNA (sorted cells, tissues and organs) and to the entire age spectrum (from prenatal tissue to tissues of centenarians). DNA methylation has a very specific signature in young vs old organisms, and DNA methylation and can be used to measure the age of organisms, and even predict their lifespan: If you zoom way out and look at the pattern of where these methyl groups attach to DNA, a very interesting picture emerges. One of the most-studied factors driving epigenetics is DNA methylation – the attachment of a specific chemical called a methyl group to a piece of DNA to turn it on or off. Epigenetics is the study how genes activate or deactivate in specific patterns, which determines how entire cells function. Patterns of Gene Expression and Epigenetic Clocks
#FUNCTIONAL AGE VS CHRONOLOGICAL AGE HOW TO#
You can think of these patterns of gene expression as a “recipe” that tells each cell how to build itself in a particular way. Patterns of gene activation are what tells a cell to be a muscle cell versus a nerve cell, a healthy cell vs a diseased cell, and an old cell vs a young cell. Within the long strand of DNA, certain genes are activated, others are deactivated. So if every cell has the same Book of You in the nucleus, and is reading off the same book to create you, why are cells different? Why is a nerve cell a nerve cell, instead of a muscle cell? Why is a healthy cell healthy, instead of diseased? That means all 3.2 billion base pairs that define The Book of You are present in every cell of your body.
#FUNCTIONAL AGE VS CHRONOLOGICAL AGE FULL#
Currently, we think there are ~21,000 genes, meaning only about 1.2% of our entire genome is made of functioning genes, the rest is what we all “non-coding DNA”.Įvery cell in your body has a full copy of your genome in the nucleus.
#FUNCTIONAL AGE VS CHRONOLOGICAL AGE MANUAL#
A gene is the instruction manual to code a protein, and these proteins contribute to making your body the way it is – making your hair curly vs straight, blue eyes vs brown, having sickle cell anemia vs healthy.īecause genes have these specific functions, we want to identify each one and understand what it does. “Genes” are what we call bundles of DNA that perform these specific functions. Since then, we’re looking at this mass of letters, and trying to figure out which bundles of DNA function together to perform specific functions. When we mapped the human genome 2003, we mapped every single base pair of DNA. But yours is entirely unique – The Book of You. That’s a lot of information, a lot of data. Print those base pairs out like words on a page, and you’d end up with a book 1,000 times longer than “War and Peace.” You have about 3.2 billion base pairs in your genome. Aging Cell: Reversal of epigenetic aging and immunosenescent trends in humans Here, we use four such age estimators to show that epigenetic aging can be reversed in humans.

But your body can effectively have a different biological age, because your cells express themselves the way young cells do, and exhibit the characteristics of young cells.Įpigenetic “clocks” can now surpass chronological age in accuracy for estimating biological age. You know your chronological age by looking at the calendar. In this article, I’m going to walk you through an overview of genetics, epigenetics, and the epigenetic clock tests used to measure the difference between your cellular (biological) age and your calendar (chronological) age. It’s the result of the most cutting-edge science in longevity being done at places like Harvard and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the world’s leading scientific journals like Nature and Cell. This probably sounds crazy – like science fiction. Old cells can be reprogrammed to behave like young cells. What’s even weirder is the idea that you can effectively become “younger” at the cellular level. It’s weird to think that all the things we associate with aging – white hair, wrinkles, bad eyesight, disease – are just accumulated damage within your body.
#FUNCTIONAL AGE VS CHRONOLOGICAL AGE DRIVER#
The primary driver of aging is reduced damage repair capacity within your body.
