Cheeks please!
A Manhattan-based biotechnology company has developed an “aging” clock that uses information from cheek cells to predict biological age.
Biological age is the age of cells and tissues. This number may differ from your chronological age, which is the number of years you have lived. The research revealed that A large difference between biological age and chronological age can significantly increase the risk of death from disease.
While most biochemical tests that predict a person’s biological age rely on blood DNA, Tally Health’s CheekAge is a non-invasive cheek swab.
For the study published Tuesday, frontier of agingTally Health researchers tested CheekAge technology using blood samples from a dataset that followed 1,500 older people in the UK over time.
“This study shows that our CheekAge clock trained using cheek cells (buccal) is still highly significantly associated with mortality in the blood,” Tally Health calculations Max Shokhirev, head of biology and data science, told The Post.
“This is particularly interesting given that CheekAge was trained on a different organization and that the blood dataset we used for testing was missing about half of the inputs required for CheekAge’s predictions,” he said. added.
Shokhirev pointed out that CheekAge does not predict when or how a person will die, but shows that the difference between biological age and chronological age is significantly associated with mortality risk.
Every three years, study participants underwent blood tests for DNA methylation. The last available data point was used to calculate CheekAge.
DNA methylation is a natural biological process in which chemical tags are added to DNA. Even though the genetic code remains the same, the function of genes can change.
DNA methylation levels change over time. Diet, hormones, stress, drugs, and exposure to pollutants can influence this process.
According to Tully Health, the CheekAge, launched earlier this year, outperformed and matched the four first-generation watches developed several years ago. DNAm phenoageblood-trained predictors of chronic disease and mortality risk.
CheekAge serves as the foundation of Tally Health. aggregate age testa cheek swab kit available to consumers.
Tally Health found that an individual’s CheekAge is associated with lifestyle factors such as sleep, exercise, and alcohol intake, as well as health factors such as exposure to COVID-19.
“We are actively engaged in research to better understand what types of variables and indicators are significantly associated with CheekAge, including various diseases, health conditions, and lifestyle factors.” Adib Johnson, director of scientific affairs and education at Tully Health, told the Post. .
