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Related Experiment Video

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Surveying Low-Cost Methods to Measure Lifespan and Healthspan in Caenorhabditis elegans

Surveying Low-Cost Methods to Measure Lifespan and Healthspan in Caenorhabditis elegans

Published on: May 18, 2022

Contextualizing aging clocks and properly describing biological age.

Adiv A Johnson¹, Maxim N Shokhirev¹

¹Tally Health, New York City, New York, USA.

|October 11, 2024

Summary

Scientists recommend precise language when discussing aging. Aging clocks measure specific biological markers, not overall biological age, to avoid confusion.

Keywords:

aging biomarker aging clock biohorology biological age chronological age mortality

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Area of Science:

Gerontology
Biomarkers
Molecular Biology

Background:

The term "biological age" is increasingly used to describe the output of aging clocks.
Aging is a complex, multifactorial process that is tissue-specific.
A single metric cannot fully quantify an individual's aging process.

Purpose of the Study:

To clarify the distinction between aging clock outputs and the concept of whole-body biological age.
To propose standardized nomenclature for describing aging clock results.
To prevent conflation of specific aging biomarkers with overall biological aging.

Main Methods:

Analysis of current scientific literature and common terminology regarding aging clocks.
Survey of scientific consensus on the quantification of aging.
Development of a nomenclature framework for aging clock outputs.

Main Results:

Most scientists agree that aging cannot be quantified by a single metric.
Aging clocks provide measures of specific aging aspects (e.g., epigenetic age, transcriptomic age), not comprehensive biological age.
A proposed naming convention suggests describing clock output by input data type or clock name (e.g., "epigenetic age" or "CheekAge").

Conclusions:

Aging clocks should not be equated with whole-body biological age.
Precise terminology is crucial for accurate scientific communication and public understanding of aging.
Aging biomarkers can serve as indicators of biological age, but not as its sole determinant.