Health
Methylation clocks are far and away the most accurate markers of a person’s age, and so are a promising tool for evaluating anti-aging interventions, but they are a bit of a black box.
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Methylation clocks are far and away the most accurate markers of a person’s age, and so are a promising tool for evaluating anti-aging interventions, but they are a bit of a black box. We know from statistics that certain places on chromosomes become steadily methylated (or demethylated) with age, but we often don’t know what effect that has on expression of particular genes.
For the first time, a clock has been devised based on proteins in the blood that is comparable in accuracy to the best methylation clocks. This has the advantage of being downstream of epigenetics, so it is less
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Josh Mitteldorf
Josh Mitteldorf studies the evolutionary theory of aging with computer simulations and experimental biology. His Science Blog column has long argued that aging is a regulated biological program, and that understanding that program is the path to meaningful intervention.