03 / RESEARCH AREAS
Measuring aging
Biological clocks, biomarkers and what it means to measure change.
Research in this area
Newest published first
13–23 of 23 articles
Are Longer Telomeres Always Better? Repair, Replication, and Cancer Risk
Longer telomeres may allow some cells to keep dividing, while also allowing cells that have acquired mutations to persist longer. Assessing whether that change is beneficial requires considering…
- Human genetics and familiesModerate
- Mouse survival and safetyLimited
- Human lifespan benefit in healthy peopleNot yet determinable
Mitochondrial Damage: What Tissue Averages Can Hide
If only a small fraction of mitochondrial DNA in a muscle sample carries a large deletion, does that mean every part of the muscle is functioning normally? The answer depends on where those deletions…
- Human local distributionModerate
- Human age associationLimited
- Function and overall consequencesNot yet determinable
More Autophagy: Faster Clearance or Blocked Processing?
More cellular “cleanup vesicles” can mean two very different things: a cell may be moving more material, or processing further along the pathway may have slowed and vesicles are accumulating. A…
- Measurement and mechanismStrong
- Animal lifespanModerate
- Human carrier readoutsLimited
- Human health and longevityNot yet determinable
Can a blood test measure the age of individual organs?
A blood sample can provide information about organ state and future disease risk. Today's “organ ages,” however, are statistical readouts produced jointly by selected proteins, a model and a…
- Disease-risk associationsModerate
- Organ origin and functionLimited
- Comparability of individual readoutsLimited
- Intervention and life extensionNot yet determinable
When T-cell numbers persist, can immune recognition still narrow?
T-cell numbers, receptor sequence diversity and actual antigen responses are related but different quantities. Existing cells can expand to maintain a population while a few clones occupy more of it…
- Human molecular diversityModerate
- Composition and samplingModerate
- Mechanistic attributionLimited
- Function and lifespanLimited
Why are some people robust at 70 while others are frail?
Two people can reach 70 with very different health reserves. The frailty index (FI) summarizes part of that difference by adding scores for a set of health deficits and dividing by the number of…
- Index constructionLimited
- FI and mortalityModerate
- Composition at a given scoreLimited
- Temporal validationLimited
Does sleeping too little accelerate aging—and is too much sleep harmful too?
Sleep and mortality studies often show a U-shaped curve: people reporting short or long sleep have higher mortality than those reporting about seven hours. Several explanations fit that pattern…
- Reported sleep and mortalityModerate
- Reverse causation and healthLimited
- Bias simulationLimited
- Intervention and aging rateNot yet determinable
Partial reprogramming: what becomes younger—readouts, identity, or function?
Partial reprogramming can alter molecular readouts in cultured cells, but function, stability and human benefit require separate tests. Gill and colleagues’ 2022 maturation phase transient…
- Molecular readoutsLimited
- Cell identityLimited
- Cell functionLimited
- Stability and safetyNot yet determinable
Does Living Longer Mean Ageing More Slowly?
Longer life is a valuable outcome, but it does not by itself show that every organ ages more slowly. We reanalysed public ITP mouse data on function, body composition and pathology, and independently…
- Mouse survivalModerate
- Specific mouse functionLimited
- Selected pathologyLimited
- Attribution to overall ageing rateNot yet determinable
Does the Body Suddenly Age at 44 and 60?
The available results do not establish ages 44 and 60 as two universal turning points in aging. We checked the original code and data and repeated age permutations and participant resampling. The…
- Reproduction and conditional count behaviorModerate
- Locating biological transitions at 44/60 from this curveNot supported
When an Aging Clock Turns Back, What Has Actually Changed?
A lower clock reading can be a biological signal worth investigating. Interpreting it as a younger body, less disease or a longer life requires further evidence. We reanalyzed published CALERIE blood…
- Clock readings can moveModerate
- What a reversal meansNot yet determinable