The life insurance industry is closely monitoring new developments in ageing research. This is because they have a major stake in estimating people's life expectancy and health. They are investing heavily in studying medical progress, particularly in the field of therapies that might slow down or treat ageing.
An important area of research is the use of so-called ‘aging clocks’. These are methods that combine various types of biological data to estimate a person's biological age. This age can differ from their chronological age and provides an idea of how healthy someone actually is and what their expected risk of mortality is.
However, insurers still make little use of these ageing clocks for their products. This is because these clocks are not yet accurate enough to reliably predict individual health. Moreover, there is still uncertainty about how these measurements relate precisely to the ageing process in the body.
For people who want to age healthily, this news is hopeful. It means that scientists and insurers continue to work on better methods to map ageing. As a result, new treatments and preventative measures can be better developed and applied in the future.
Source: Reason
