Abstract

With long term healthy living taking a center stage, biological age has become a trendy & vital metrics to evaluate how we are aging internally. Over the last 3 years, multiple players have added a biological age feature, enabling health aspirants to track their aging. While this could be a good addition to track wearable & sensory based metrics, the methods/models adopted by these companies are obscure, not based on molecular data & does not reflect the true & elaborative picture of biology. The blog discusses the huge fallacies in these irrelevant models & spells out the right scientific system biology driven approach to assess biological age relative to chronological age.

Current Practices

Over the last few decades, the gold standard to evaluate our health condition & identify disease phenotype has been routine diagnostic tests. These tests have been used to manage the disease phenotype or post disease symptomatic conditions to make them more bearable. Chronic diseases & cancer are asymptomatic & develop decades ago with chronic inflammation. This pre-symptomatic phase of these diseases lasts decades before the symptoms( phenotype) show up in the blood works. As such, these blood works are not equipped to identify the pathogenesis of the disease during these pre-symptomatic levels. Besides, these routine diagnostic investigations are plagued with structural & functional issues, raising questions on their efficacy, accuracy & correctness. This leads to late or mis-diagnosis & poor prognosis. 

Fast forward, these companies have developed a feature to measure biological age  by combining these inaccurate & highly variable( standard deviation of 30% plus) blood tests & sensory based inaccurate wearable metrics. This has resulted in multiple issues & gaps in these unresearched biological age models

1.The biological age measurement is flawed & cannot identify cellular dysfunction &  mitochondrial inefficiency- the key hallmarks of biological aging.

2.Since these blood tests & wearables are just a summary of biological processes, they cannot be considered as a building block to identify & address specific dysregulations /abnormalities at molecular & cellular level.

3.Since, these blood tests & wearables does not measure the functions of human microbiome, the biological age feature derived by combining these tests do not capture 99% of biology

Let us deep dive into some examples

1.VO2 max: This biological age feature considers VO2 Max to be one of the key markers for biological age. However, abnormalities in VO2 Max as measured by wearables cannot pinpoint towards specific pathways dysregulated at molecular level be it nitric oxide deficiency?  Suboptimal P- cresol production or high TMAO Production? 

2.C-reaction Protein(CRP): CRP reflects inflammation at plasma level. However, blood tests cannot identify the source of this inflammation. Is it LPS? Putrescine? Low Butyrate or High Ammonia production? 

3.Homocysteine levels: This is one of the biomarkers for cardiovascular disease & impacts biological age. High homocysteine level could be due to dysregulation in different pathways- It could be High Methane Production, High methyl mercaptan production or low synthesis of vitamin B6 or B12?

Using blood tests to measure  biological age, it becomes difficult to identify specific factors making you age faster than chronological age & impossible to suggest interventions that improve biological age

The way forward

Inside every cells inside your body, a new aging story unfolds

Each cell has a powerhouse- mitochondria, repair functionaries & antioxidant processes. The balance in these 3 building blocks- growth, maintenance & repair drives how well we are aging

Our mitochondria works endlessly to give our cells & organs energy to perform various functions while at the same time also produces free radicals( a normal process) & also gets attacked by inflammatory molecules & oxidation processes. Specific antioxidants such as superoxide dismutase, glutathione & more neutralises these free radicals & inflammatory cascades to make sure that there is a burst of energy as well as cleaning action in place to have youthful cells & maintain DNA integrity.

Lack of this delicate balance & synchronisation of these building blocks could trigger oxidative damage to our cellular structures. This essential means that our body is a vessel of billions of biochemical transactions taking place every single second to maintain our cell structure, produce energy efficiently, produce more mitochondria, rejuvenate our cells & drive repair mechanisms

When all these functions work in synchrony, it maintains cellular homeostasis.

However when few of these functions are not optimal, either over-expressed or underexpressed, it directly impacts our cellular health- both human & microbial, leading to  

1.Decline of essential cellular functions

2. Downregulation of specific pathways that signifies cells are no coping with all the proteins that needs to be transported & cannot drive post translational modifications where to traffic the delivery of certain proteins 

3.Inability to degrade misfolded proteins

4.DNA damage

5.Development of senescent cells 

6. Shortening of telomeres

7.Inability to mobilise & differentiate stem cells to repair & replace dysfunctional cells.

8.Inability of our cells to synthesise anti-oxidants neutralise super oxide & free radicals

9.Mitochondria damage

These all abnormalities taken together could make up age biologically

Therefore it becomes essential to decipher & measure each of the biochemical functions at molecular & cellular level in order to identify specific dysregulated pathways that are degrading our cells & making us age faster than our chronological age.

The right questions

Think of biological age as the ability of our cells to perform its job, mitochondria to produce more ATP with less oxygen as well as make mitochondria as well as repair & replace dysfunctional cells.

 So when it comes to measuring your biological age or subscribing to a biological age feature, you should ask the following questions

Can this biological age feature

1.Measure how well my cells are producing nitric oxide?

2.Identify specific molecular interactions that can upregulate PGC-1 Alpha in order to stimulate mitochondria biogenesis?

3.Ability to cells to produce signalling molecules that could mobilise & differentiate stem cells to repair & replace dysfunction cells?

4.Measure gut microbiome functions that could produce metabolites in order to stimulate autophagy & mitophagy?

5.Measure your oral microbiome functions that is promoting production of essential molecules to facilitate intercellular communications

6.Measure the health of your cell membranes?

7.Measure interactions between your microbiome(gut + oral) & other cells including immune cells?

The Genefitletics approach to tech transform longevity

We measure your biological age by combining over 500 plus molecular pathways. The approach starts with collecting 10 million molecules data points related to gut & oral microbiome & cellular functions by sequencing your biological sample & analysing them using our machine learning algorithm to translate them to various pathways. These pathways are assigned scores which reflect your body’s systemic impact on overall cellular health & wellness drawn from insights from over 35000 plus existing scientific literature as well as 9 internal validation studies

These quantified pathways gives a detailed picture of your aging process at molecular level across crucial areas

1.Cellular energy efficiency

2.Cellular repair efficiency

3.Mitochondrial biogenesis

4.Cellular stress

5.Cellular senescence.

6.Inflammatory markers

7.Metabolic health

8.Oral health

9.Immune health

10.Cardiovascular health

11.Microbiome vitality

12.Oxidative stress levels.

13. Antioxidant activity

14.Gut health

15.Hormonal health

16.Brain & cognitive health

17.Cellular proteostasis

Our recommendation engine that mathematically marries these pathways with proprietary biotherapeutics ontology to deliver biotherapeutics interventions with biology based dosages to modulate these pathways in order to slow down your biological age relative to chronological age.

The recommendations are aimed at 

• Improving energy efficiency, 
• Boosting mitochondria biogenesis
• Supporting cellular repair mechanisms
• Promoting antioxidant processes
• Improving nutrient absorption
• Promoting beneficial microbiome functions while suppressing inflammatory ones

Our circular loop mechanism enables you to track how your daily choices are directly influencing over 500 plus pathways that have a bearing on how you are aging internally.

Stay on track with Genefitletics

Our biological age is one of the many molecular biomarkers we measure regularly to assess your holistic health. To maximise the benefits from our science & data driven solution, aim at

1.Testing with us regularly

2.Following your biotherapeutic interventions & sticking to the dosages.

3.Using our circular loop model to track the impact of each of recommendation on various pathways

4.Tracking quarterly impact of interventions on your disease phenotype & following the modifications in interventions based on improvement in your phenotype

5. Observing the impact on interventions on your energy levels

Final words

You are not just signing for a magic biological age number, rather understanding fundamental biological processes that drive your health at cellular level. You can decipher how your cells respond to your choices & which specific molecules, foods & antioxidants you can feed your cells to drive their vitality.