Scientists are increasingly using ageing clocks to measure biological ageing. These clocks are created by advanced computer techniques that analyse biological data, such as blood values or imaging. They can predict how “old” the body feels, which is sometimes different from chronological age.
The idea is that a higher biological age points to a greater chance of age-related ailments and mortality. This makes ageing clocks useful for investigating whether new treatments can slow down the ageing process. Until now, however, it has been difficult to reliably measure the effect of innovative therapies using these clocks.
That is because the link between the data that clocks use and the actual ageing mechanisms is not yet fully understood. As a result, the clocks can sometimes be too optimistic or conversely too pessimistic about the effect of a treatment. To solve this problem, researchers are now gathering a lot of data from various studies involving humans and animals.
With all this information, they ultimately hope to discover which ageing clocks best indicate whether a treatment is truly working. This is important because rapidly assessing new therapies accelerates the development of effective methods against ageing. This way, step by step, we can learn to age more healthily.
Source: Reason
