Morning!
If you’ve been keeping up with latest billionaire fads, right alongside space races and tax loopholes, venture capitalist and entrepreneur-turned-human-lab-
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Chronological & Biological Age
At some point, you’ve probably met someone who acts like they’re in their 30s but looks like they’re pushing 50. What’s going on there? The answer lies in something called biological age, a far more accurate way to measure how well (or poorly) your body is holding up over time.
On the surface, it sounds simple, biological age is how old your cells actually are. This makes quite a bit of sense, but it doesn’t help answer our question, and here’s why. If you are 25 years old all your cells will also be 25 years old. See? That didn’t help much, did it? That’s why scientists have developed a list of indicators that tell us how ‘run down’ your body is.
Let’s explain it with a car analogy, because, why not. You buy two identical cars on the same day. One is carefully maintained: regular oil changes, premium fuel, parked in a garage, never pushed beyond its limits. The other? It gets whatever gas is cheapest, goes months without a service, is left out in the rain, and has been in at least one questionable street race. Same year, same make & model, but by year five, one still looks and drives like new while the other is a wheezing, rattling mess. Both cars are of the same chronological age, however clearly they are not in the same physical state, aka biological age. That is basically why biological age is much more relevant and accurate at describing the state of someone's health.
Now that we know what age is, let’s explain what some of those indicators we mentioned earlier are, and what you can do to improve them.
Key Indicators That Determine Biological Age
Indicator #1: HbA1C
Sounds like a classified experiment, but is actually associated with diabetes “tracking”. HbA1C is a measure of the glycated haemoglobin, which is essentialy hemoglobin holding onto glucose. Hemoglobin is a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. Glucose is a type of sugar that provides energy to the body. Great, we’re back up to speed.
Red blood cells typically live for 2-3 months, so this indicator gives us a glimpse into the average blood sugar over that time period. You should aim to have a level below 5.6%. Anything between 5.6-6.4% is considered pre-diabetes, and over 6.4%is diabetes.
Why High HbA1C Is a Problem
A high level of HbA1C also means that your body's glucose metabolism could be deteriorating or not working right. Another reason is, when attached to our red blood cells, glucose increases the affinity with oxygen. This means that it holds on to oxygen harder than the red blood cell normally would. This sounds good at first, but remember, your red blood cells are meant to release the oxygen into your body’s tissues, not just run around with it. So, too much affinity and your tissues can say goodbye to oxygen. Glucose also binds to the hemoglobin and it can create reactive oxygen species which are responsible for “stressing” our cells out and increasing inflammation.
Before we continue, note that everyone has HbA1C levels, no matter how healthy. It increases with age, and as you probably guessed, you can lower it by controling your blood sugar levels. Below is a very interesting representation of how HbA1C increases over time for different age groups.
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Indicator #2: Horvath’s Clock
Steve Horvath, a UCLA researcher, developed a method to measure DNA methylation, which tracks how many miles you’ve put on your genetic material. When we are born this number is close to zero, followed by a steep acceleration of the clock during childhood and adolescence, stabilizing after around the age of 20. Why 20? We age according to cellular division, the more divisions, the more aging. So, when you double your size, quite literally, you could say you’ve split more than a few times.
What Is Methylation?
Methylation is a biochemical process that occurs in every cell of your body. It involves adding tiny chemical tags, called methyl groups, to certain areas of your DNA. Think of these as molecular “kill switches” that turn the gene off. While some methylation is necessary for regulating things like inflammation, you certainly don’t want to turn off tumor-suppressing genes or let the process run rampant. Over time, methylation patterns change due to environmental factors, lifestyle choices, and natural aging.
How Accurate Is This Method?
The Horvath Clock is incredibly accurate across all age groups, having a median accuracy of just 5.2 years. This means it can tell if your cells are aging faster (or slower) than your chronological age. In young people, it’s incredibly precise, however as we age, our internal clocks start to tick at different speeds (again, due to how we take care of ourselves), meaning the accuracy of these estimates begins to diverge.
The Do’s and Dont’s of Aging
Ok, ok, we get it… existential crisis incoming. But hey, no need to panic! There’s actually a lot we can do to slow down this chemical clock and keep ourselves thriving as we age! Let’s explore how.
The Do’s
Regular exercise is a game-changer. It acts like a biological rewind button, slowing down and even reversing some of the methylation processes that happen in your body daily. It helps keep your cells in better shape by counteracting the effects of aging and can even prevent some of the worst habits that accelerate the aging process. To be clear, regular exercise isn’t just about building muscle or improving endurance; it’s a crucial part of maintaining overall health at the cellular level.
A balanced diet full of whole foods is another cornerstone of healthy aging. When you focus on eating fresh fruits and vegetables, you’re nourishing your body with antioxidants that help fight inflammation and oxidative stress. These nutrients give your cells the fuel they need to keep functioning at their best. A diet rich in natural, unprocessed foods supports your overall well-being, helping to slow the aging process and keep you feeling vibrant and energized.
Getting enough sleep is one of the easiest ways to support your health as you age, and it’s one of the most important factors. It’s tempting to burn the candle at both ends, but by prioritizing 7-9 hours of sleep each night you’re allowing your cells to repair, regenerate, and function optimally. Restful sleep improves your body’s ability to regulate stress, lowers cortisol levels, and helps reduce inflammation. Your immune system gets stronger, your heart benefits from reduced stress, and your brain has the time it needs to clear out toxins, improving mental clarity. Most importantly, sleep preserves telomeres, the protective caps at the ends of your chromosomes made out of nucleotide chains (genetic building blocks) that keep your DNA untangled. These telomeres naturally shorten over time, but chronic sleep deprivation speeds up the process, increasing cellular damage and reducing longevity. By prioritizing sleep, you're actively supporting your body’s ability to stay healthy and age gracefully.
Interested in learning more about sleep? Check out our sleep edition.
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The Dont’s
A high BMI is strongly linked to increased methylation, accelerating biological aging. This happens for a few key reasons. First, a higher BMI is often associated with diets high in ultra-processed foods, which, as we covered earlier, drive unwanted methylation. Second, excess weight isn’t just about bigger fat cells, it’s about more cells. Your body doesn’t just store fat; it creates new fat cells (adipocytes) to help with overflow, leading to more frequent cellular division. And as we know, every division shortens telomeres which is what we want to avoid doing.
Obesity specifically adds another layer to this issue. Fat cells release cytokines, pro-inflammatory compounds that trigger chronic inflammation. The more adipocytes in your body, the greater the inflammation, and the faster your cells age.
And then there’s stress, the silent saboteur. Consider placing stress on your body’s most wanted list. While some wear stress like a badge of honor, the reality is it destructively chips away at your health. Chronic stress elevates cortisol, drives oxidation, and fuels inflammation, all of which accelerate cellular damage and aging. If there’s ever been a reason to slow down, this is it.
ENDNOTE
Final Thoughts
For now, even with the best conditions we can’t outmaneuver biology forever. We’re all bound by the same natural process due to something called the Hayflick limit. This refers to the number of times a cell can divide before its telomeres (those protective caps at the end of chromosomes we discussed) run out. Cancer and stem cells aside, this limit is between around 40 to 60 divisions. Once the telomeres are gone, the cell can no longer divide.
That said, this isn’t a grim deadline but rather a natural part of life’s design. Our bodies are remarkably good at repair and regeneration, but over time, small errors and accumulated damage start to add up. Eventually, the system reaches its limit, but that doesn’t mean we can’t slow the clock down. In that sense, Brian Johnson is onto something by reinforcing protective factors and cutting out harmful ones. While immortality isn’t exactly around the corner, longevity may very well be another story, and is something we are increasingly improving.
That’s all for today folks! Thank you for sticking around and for your thoughtful feedback and appreciation in last week’s edition!
Until next week!
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