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'Aging clocks' tell you how much 'older' you are than your chronological age. How do they work?
Live Science ^ | August 29, 2025 | Patrick Sullivan

Posted on 08/29/2025 12:47:43 PM PDT by Red Badger

If you want to know your chronological age, simply count the candles on your next birthday cake. Calculating your biological age, though, is a little more complicated.

Chronological age is the number of years between your birth and now; it's purely time-based. Biological age, on the other hand, describes the progressive breakdown of an individual's physiological and molecular systems over time; it's a measure of how "aged" the body is. The calculation aims to answer the question of how well your systems, organs and cells are working compared to an average, healthy baseline.

"Biological age is notoriously hard to define because it's very much a conceptual notion," said Eric Sun, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at MIT, where he will launch a new lab starting in 2026. The concept requires you to think less about pure chronology and more about how your body is performing over time, and what your risks and vulnerabilities for various diseases might be in the future, he said.

Scientists have devised a number of "clocks" aimed at determining people's biological ages. Here's how they work and why they might be useful.

What are "biological aging clocks"? Think of a battery: New batteries start at 100% capacity, in terms of their ability to reliably hold a charge, but that capacity drops over time as the battery cycles on and off and powers devices. Biological age is a similar concept of capacity, and the tools researchers and clinicians use to measure your capacity are known as aging clocks, also known as "omic clocks" or "biological age tests."

Although such clocks are in development, the science of biological age is still in its infancy.

(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Military/Veterans; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: aging; health

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To: Red Badger

When your clock runs out, are they planning on just cremating you whether you are dead or not? Or will it be merciful involuntary euthanasia first.


21 posted on 08/29/2025 4:25:00 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: Red Badger

I have seen a lot of people age a decade or more in just a few years.


22 posted on 08/29/2025 4:40:03 PM PDT by TBP (Decent people cannot fathom the amoral cruelty of the Democrat cult.)
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To: Governor Dinwiddie

My clock must be running backward.
I look marvelous!


23 posted on 08/29/2025 7:38:14 PM PDT by minnesota_bound (Making money now. Still want much more.)
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To: Red Badger

.


24 posted on 08/29/2025 7:48:31 PM PDT by sauropod
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