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The DNA Test That Tells You Your Real Age

What happens when you mail off your spit to learn your biological age

Courtesy Sandy Hingston There's nothing like living through a pandemic that's more dangerous for old folks than young ones to make you think hard about aging. According to the CDC, the death rate from is 10 times higher for those ages 65 to 74 than for those ages 35 to 44 — a startling difference. Then again, we all know from our high school class reunions that there are 68-year-olds who are still hiking the Appalachian Trail and 68-year-olds whose only path lies between the . Me, I'm somewhere in the middle. Which is why I was intrigued to learn about a test that promises to tell you, not your chronological age, which is to say the number of years since you were born, but your : how your body's holding up in comparison to the bodies of everybody else. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. It wasn't an opportunity I instantly jumped at. While it's true I eat a lot of broccoli, I also drink a lot of wine. I smoked cigarettes for 25 years. (Hey, everybody did back in the day.) And while I still play volleyball at age 63, I'm paying for it — or for something — . There are times I feel ancient — for example, when I contemplate heading outside for my daily pandemic walk now that winter (brrr!) is here. On the other hand … suppose I'm doing okay at the job of bodily upkeep? What if my former and current bad habits have miraculously been counteracted by good genes or good luck? Wouldn't that be something to celebrate — and to crow about if we ever have high school reunions again? AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. and gray hair with Clairol, scientists say there are ways to slow down your biological aging rate. Flowers & Gifts 25% off sitewide and 30% off select items See more Flowers & Gifts offers > First, though, you have to know what it is. Biological age can be calculated by measuring certain “biomarkers” that scientists know correlate with getting older — changes like chemical alterations to DNA that affect the ability of your cells to successfully replicate. "Nearly all major diseases — heart disease, stroke, , Parkinson's, — occur at an increased rate as we age,” says Eric Verdin, M.D., president and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Sure, some of our aging rate is encoded in our DNA — in other words, it's genetic. We all know families where everybody seems to live to be 103. But according to Verdin, more than 90 percent of our lifespan is determined by our behavior — what we eat, how active we are, how stressed we are, even how much we sleep. This is the modifiable stuff. (While Verdin's estimate may be on the higher side, widely accepted medical studies of twins suggest that genetics likely accounts for only 20 to 30 percent of someone's chance of surviving to age 85.) Right now, says Verdin, medicine is organized on the principle of “one organ, one doctor": You see a cardiologist for your heart, you get treated; two years later, you get cancer, you see a cancer doctor; two years after that, you get . But all these conditions are related to the aging process, so the ability to track and modify that process promises health benefits across the board. The Index test assesses the biological rate at which you're aging Courtesy Elysium To that end, Morgan Levine, a Yale assistant professor of pathology and epidemiology who's an adviser of bioinformatics at a life sciences company called Elysium Health, has devised a test called Index. It assesses the biological rate at which you're aging by analyzing more than 100,000 biomarkers across your genome. Why not, in this age of analytics? “As a society,” Levine points out, “we're tracking everything. My . But the most important thing to track is your aging.” AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. , , healthy relationships) to stay biologically spry. It was all interesting and handsomely presented, but as far as I was concerned, I had all the info I'd need: I'm biologically younger (barely) than the calendar says. So why change anything? According to Levine, some 70 percent of us have biological ages within five years of our chronological ages. But the difference can be as much as a decade — and altering your behavior may affect your aging rate. As tests like Index become more common, prices will come down — for Black Friday weekend, for example, Elysium will be running specials that cut hundreds of dollars off the costs of Index and its Basis supplement. As scientists continue to refine their ways of measuring biological age, we can look for more personally tailored analyses to pinpoint, say, the effects of smoking and environmental exposure, or even (yikes!) . All this will allow us to test ourselves more often and quantify our responses to different supplements and regimens. Personally, I feel that between cholesterol, , blood sugar, bone density and all the rest, I've already got more than enough to keep track of. (My husband, who wears a watch just like the one Dr. Levine does, is more into the potential tracking and analytics.) Still, it's nice to get a little hard data to tell me my efforts — both now and in the future — may be helping me cheat Father Time, at least a bit. More on health AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. AARP VALUE & MEMBER BENEFITS See more Health & Wellness offers > See more Flights & Vacation Packages offers > See more Finances offers > See more Health & Wellness offers > SAVE MONEY WITH THESE LIMITED-TIME OFFERS