(Adenchronos) – “You look younger than your age.” The compliment reserved for people with enviable appearance who seem to have stopped in time, despite the date of birth appearing on their ID card, tells the truth: biological aging does not always coincide with chronological aging. A new test could reveal how old our bodies actually are. It was developed by a team of researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom. Technically called an “epigenetic clock,” it is a type of biochemical assessment that checks DNA to understand how much a person’s body has aged compared to the age registered at the registry office. The test developed by the international team of experts is the first of these cutting-edge tests that has been shown to work accurately in a clinical context, in both healthy and diseased tissue. In other words, it accurately measures the body’s aging. The findings were published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, as part of a study into the effects of chronic kidney disease and associated treatments. “Our data, obtained using the new Glasgow-Karolinska Clock, not only show that these patients age faster than the general population, but that their accelerated aging does not slow until after they undergo a kidney transplant. Dialysis treatment does not appear to “It has no effect on the process,” explains Peter Stevinke, a professor at the Swedish Institute. The team studied more than 400 patients with chronic kidney disease in Sweden along with about 100 matched population groups, to better understand the disease’s impact on aging. To do this, the researchers used a variety of tests, including blood biomarkers, skin autofluorescence, and epigenetic clocks. The team used clocks to measure the change in patients’ biological age after one year of various treatments, but they also studied how people’s healthy tissue ages in The control group. Hence, the biological clock of the examined patients was found to run faster than that of the average healthy person. But there were problems with accuracy, and the team developed a new, more accurate genetic clock – the Glasgow-Karolinska clock, in fact – which works well. Both on healthy and diseased tissues. As the body ages, a number of factors lead to epigenetic changes and the loss of the “chemical marker” (DNA methylation) of the genetic code. This phenomenon is often associated with a number of diseases common with aging, such as chronic kidney disease, cancer, and heart disease. Epigenetic clocks have been proposed as the “gold standard,” because they are able to measure these aspects. The drug developed by the experts has been shown to do this more precisely, even “compared to the high standards of the clinical setting,” says Helen Erlandsson (Karolinska Institutet), one of the first authors of the study. “The ‘tagging’ of DNA methylation is influenced by what we eat as well as by the gut microbiome. As a result – he highlights – this new watch has real potential to be able to evaluate lifestyle interventions, including diet, that could benefit the public. And help.” In addressing issues such as health inequalities.” —salute/[email protected] (webinfo)
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