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A Manhattan-based biotech company has developed an “aging” clock that uses information from the cells in your cheeks to predict your biological age.
Biological age is the age of your cells and tissues – this number can differ from your chronological age, which is the number of years you’ve been alive. Research has found that a large gap between your biological and chronological age can significantly increase your risk of dying from disease.
Most biochemical tests that predict a person’s biological age rely on blood DNA, but Tally Health’s CheekAge is a non-invasive cheek swab.
For a study published Tuesday in Frontiers in Aging, Tally Health researchers tested their CheekAge technology using blood samples in a dataset where 1,500 senior citizens in the United Kingdom were tracked over time.
“In this current work, we show that our CheekAge clock, which was trained using (buccal) cheek cells, is still highly correlated with blood mortality,” Max Shokhirev, head of computational biology and computer science, told The Post. data in Tally Health. .
“This is particularly interesting given that CheekAge was trained on a different tissue and given that the blood dataset we used for testing was missing roughly half of the inputs needed to predict CheekAge,” he added.
Shokhirev noted that CheekAge doesn’t predict when or how you’ll die — it shows that the difference between your biological age and your chronological age is highly correlated with mortality risk.
Every three years, study participants had their blood tested for DNA methylation. The last available data point was used to calculate the age of the pages.
DNA methylation is a natural biological process where chemical tags are added to DNA – the function of genes can change while the genetic code remains the same.
DNA methylation levels change over time. Diet, hormones, stress, drugs and exposure to pollutants can affect this process.
Tally Health says CheekAge, which launched earlier this year, beat the first-generation four-hour test developed years ago and was comparable to DNAm PhenoAge, a blood-trained predictor of chronic disease and mortality risk. .
CheekAge serves as the basis for Tally Health’s TallyAge Test, a kit of cheek swabs available to consumers.
Tally Health found that the age of a person’s cheeks is related to lifestyle factors such as sleep, exercise and alcohol consumption, and health factors such as having COVID-19.
“We are actively engaged in research to better understand what types of variables and metrics are significantly associated with CheekAge, including various diseases, health conditions and lifestyle factors,” Adiv Johnson told The Post. head of scientific affairs and education at Tally Health. .
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Image Source : nypost.com