Scientists have devised a fascinating way to determine when you may die.
Known as "CheekAge," this new biological clock-reader developed by the company Tally Health is, according to a press release, a far less invasive version of so-called "epigenetic clock" technology scientists have been using for the past decade to help determine how fast people are aging.
While there are some "super-agers" who age particularly well, most folks' aging rates generally follow both genetic trends personal to them and their own lifestyle factors, including smoking, drinking, stress, and diet.
Paired with epigenetic factors — those that are "imprinted" on our DNA from ancestral factors ranging from proximity to environmental pollution to the full-body stress of dealing with institutional racism — scientists can, with a fairly high level of certainty, determine how fast you're going to age.
Put differently: scientists can tell you when you're going to die. In the past, however, the process involved either taking blood tissue samples or being subjected to a battery of tests that more resembled a physical assessment than anything else.
Seeking a less-invasive solution, researchers at the New York-based longevity company Tally Health not only came up with a new methodology but are likely intending to sell it to the public.
After sifting through data from a longitudinal aging study out of Scotland that measured elderly patients' DNA expression (otherwise known as "methylation") over time, the Tally Health team determined that they had acquired enough of a trove of biomarkers to create their own epigenetic clock criteria.
In a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Aging, the Tally experts explained how they created what they're calling a "second-generation clock," which can detect DNA methylation most associated with mortality from cells obtained via a cheek swab.
"The fact that our epigenetic clock trained on cheek cells predicts mortality when measuring the methylome in blood cells suggests there are common mortality signals across tissues," boasted Maxim Shokhirev, the study's first author and head of computational biology and data science at Tally Health. "This implies that a simple, non-invasive cheek swab can be a valuable alternative for studying and tracking the biology of aging."
Because the research was funded and undertaken by a for-profit company, there is also clearly a financial benefit to this research.
Specifically, it appears that Tally Health is already selling its cheek swab tests, though it's unclear if the methodology boasted in this new paper is the same that's included in the $250 box kit advertised on its website, but we've reached out to the company for clarification.
More on aging: Scientists Figure Out Exact Ages Your Face Will Start Aging Like Milk
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