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Simple swab test can predict your true biological age – and it takes seconds
What use is there in fighting aging if you dont know how old you are in the first place?
Culturally, age is just a number. However, it also represents the number of times youve orbited the Sun, and in health contexts, your biological age is a measure of the accumulating damage, physiological changes, and loss of function that occur in your cells over time. It might be a better indicator of how old your body feels, and how far along the path you are.
Scientists train their CheekAge buccal clock to capture mortality
A brand new study by researchers based in the US and the UK found that cheek swabs, if analyzed correctly, can be a surprisingly good indicator of someones biological age.
The tissue from an adults cheek, which is relatively painless and easy to collect in a variety of settings, represents a rich source of aging biomarkers, according to the study, which came out in the academic journal Frontiers in Aging on October 1, 2024.
Their CheekAge tool can predict someones biological age with the same level of accuracy as blood tests, which are more invasive and less accessible, depending on the setting.
You can easily take a swab of your cheek at home, for example, without any help. On the other hand, to have a blood test, you have to go into a hospital, or at least see a professional.�This means that at some point in the future, we could be testing our own biological ages using this brand-new technology.
The mortality swab takes seconds to complete and gets its results from ‘epigenetics’
Epigenetics is the study of how the environment and a persons behaviors affect how their genes work. Epigenetic changes dont impact DNA. Theyre reversible.
Its an emerging area of scientific research that takes a different perspective from a genetics-only approach. As we grow from babies into children and eventually adults, and our bodies develop, the DNA that makes up our genes accumulates chemical marks, according to Harvards Center on the Developing Child.
These determine how much or little of the genes is expressed. Taken together, these marks are called the epigenome. As time goes on and our environments change, those marks can continue to impact our lives. Alternatively, they can be effectively rewritten, enabling us to change in quite fundamental ways without altering our actual DNA.
The researchers CheekAge test analyses specific epigenetic markers in cells swabbed from the inside of a persons cheek. Easy peasy. At least, its easy for the person doing the swabbing. Testing the sample might not be so straightforward!
