Videos that provide more background

This video, entitled “Epigenetic Ageing Clocks: Measuring Time Written in Our DNA”, explains how scientists can measure our true biological age using revolutionary computer algorithms.

Here is a summary of the key insights from the video:

 

    Chronological age: The number of years you have been on Earth (the number of candles on your cake) [00:42].

    Biological age: A measure of how well your body functions physiologically. This is a much better predictor of your health and lifespan [00:53].

    Chance: Your biological age is malleable. Lifestyle choices, such as diet and exercise, can accelerate or decelerate your internal ageing process [01:06].

 

    It is not a gadget for your wrist, but a powerful computer algorithm [01:34].

    The clock looks at DNA methylation: small chemical tags on your DNA that switch genes on or off [01:40].

    Metaphor: Think of your DNA as a light panel. Methylation are the “dimmer switches”. As we get older, the pattern of which lights get brighter or dim changes in a predictable way [02:06].

 

    First generation (e.g. the Horvath clock): Trained to predict your chronological age. They are amazingly accurate and work in almost all mammals [02:49].

    Second generation (e.g. PhenoAge and GrimAge): These are trained on health data and biomarkers. They do not answer the question “How old are you?”, but rather “How healthy are you?” [03:12].

 

    Age Acceleration: The difference between your biological and actual age. A positive number means you are ageing faster than average [03:44].

    The “Fruit Smoothie” problem: A blood sample is a mix of different cells. Current clocks measure the average age of the whole “smoothie”, but scientists want to know whether specific “fruits” (such as immune cells) age faster than others [04:55].

    Mitotic clocks: These measure how often stem cells in a tissue have divided. This is crucial for cancer research, because cancer cells show a huge acceleration in this clock [05:51].

 

The goal for the coming decade is to increase precision down to single cells [07:03]. Scientists hope this will not only make it possible to measure the ageing of each organ separately, but ultimately also to find ways to literally turn back the clock [07:19].