John Hemming's Web Log

The concept of an Epigenetic Clock has been around for some time. The idea is that there are markers on DNA from which it is possible to work out someone's biological age. The idea of "biological age" is that it is in essence a measurement of how healthy someone is. People with the same chronological age, but different biological ages differ in their health status. My own personal view is that in fact the overall health of an individual is a driven by the status of all of the cells. Hence one person can have a particularly unhealthy pancreas whilst another person has a particularly unhealthy kidney. However, the idea of a biological age is useful to the extent that it is an easy concept to understand even if realistically it is an oversimplification. There is then the idea that if you can reduce someone's biological age that means improving their health status. This is a good approach in the sense that we ideally would be trying to ensure people are so health